The Plan caught on from the very beginning. Inaugurated in Rochester, New York, on May 16, 1939, it had been extended to thirty-five other cities by March 1 this year and will cover about a hundred by July, Up to March the redemption of blue stamps amounted to $5% millions, February alone accounting for $1,- 738,000; and the number of families using them in the thirty-six cities was 303,525. Even more significant of the Plan's popularity, perhaps, is the fact that the Senate recently voted by 79 to 0 in favour of an $85 millions appropriation requested for its operation during the coming year, Judged solely from the American standpoint it has several merits. #4 Probably no Government programme of the last decade proved more unpopular than the cotton plough-up and pig slaughter of 1933, Both schemes were in force for a few weeks only, but the death of the little pigs—made near and dear, perhaps, by the production of Walt Disney's "Three Little Pigs" in the same summer—has for seven years remained fresh in the memory óf the nonfarm population. The competitive, individualist basis of American farming causes farm commodities to be produced whether or not there is a market for them, and dumped milk and rotting fruit and vegetables in the midst of near-starvation provided direct evidence of social and administrative incompetence. Under the Stamp Plan, families on relief e being given an opportunity to "eat the surplus"—or at all events part of it—and the urban response to this policy of distribution has been as enthusiastic as it was negative in the policy of reducing production, For the producers the increased sales of the surplus commodities ave made prices firmer; the food trades have profited from a bigger volume of business; and persons on relief have had 7%' cents' worth of food per meal instead of 5 cents—it is worth noting that the blue stamps are an additional form of relief and not a substitute. And though the Plan is open ío abuse—it was widely held at the discussion stage that the blue stamps would be traded not for food but for alcohol and tobacco—very few abuses have, in fact, been reported.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.