Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. MONDAY, JUNE 19, 1933. AMERICAN FARM RELIEF.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 53, Issue 211, 19 June 1933, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. MONDAY, JUNE 19, 1933. AMERICAN FARM RELIEF.

The imposition of a process tax on wheat to compensate growers for limiting the area under cultivation is part of the great scheme for farm relief placed before Congress by President Roosevelt. Plans to better the condition of the agriculturist are by no means a recent development, for in spite of an enormous reservoir of domestic demand, the farming areas of the United States have been sounding the cry of distress for a decade past. The Fordney emergency tariff of 1920 was claimed to have been designed for the special assistance of the farmer. After an interval in which close attention was given to such questions as credit, co-operation,;* transport and freights and cognate subjects, the first definite farm relief proposal was embodied in the McNary-Haugen bill of 1924. It was defeated, but it was'the forerunner of a regular series of similar measures, most of which were defeated in Congress or wrecked on the Presidential veto. The part farm relief played in the 1928 election resulted in the constitution of the Federal Farm Board, Mr Hoover's chief vehicle of assistance to distressed agriculture. Whatever its virtues, it failed signally to satisfy the agricultural States and the demands of the farmers were an outstanding issue ;h the last election. Mr Roosevelt's measures may be divided into three main sections, action to provide relief against the burden of farm mortgages, a scheme for raising . the price of agricultural products in the domestic market, and tariff negotiations designed to enlarge the overseas market for the exportable surplus. The scheme for raising the prices of farm produce is associated with the. plan for voluntary limitation of output. It involves imposing an excise duty on all farm products consumed in the country, the proceeds to be distributed among farmers who agreed to limit their output. The proposal to seek reciprocal tariff agreements is the aspect of chief interest to peoples outside the United States! The various tariff adjustments since the war have all embodied high duties on farm products, and have thus been represented as measures of agricultural relief. They are now attacked as having reduced the volume of overseas trade, closed the export market to surplus output, and thus helped to depress domestic prices for farm products. The argument now is that the power to control internal supplies has disappeared because the tariff policy of recent years has destroyed overseas markets. There appears, to be a determination to reopen ithem, if possible, by tariff bargaining, theoretically,, the policy is doubtless a sound one. As a practical scheme its effectiveness must be limited by the existence of quotas and embargoes in many directions and by the fact that the markets which are largely free from these limitations to entry are already flooded with commodities at severely depressed prices. To the producer in the United States the foreign market is important as a means of avoiding a glut in years of abundance.