PACKERS AND STOCKYARDS ADMINISTRATION. 579 



selliiijL!; price of his live stock and also through the opportunity it 

 afforded for unfair advertising^ of the sales results of the commission 

 men involved. Therefore the live-stock market supervisors, under 

 instructions from Washington, are requiring the commission men to 

 show the true sale prices on their accounts sales; but this does not 

 prevent the commission men from performing the prorating service 

 on cooperative shipments when instructed by consignees to do so. 



CALIFORNIA LIVE-STOCK PRICES. 



In the State of California considerable complaint has been made 

 that commercial quotations of live-stock prices were inaccurate and 

 misleading, and there being no public stockyard markets in that 

 State, the Packers and Stockyards Administration is cooperating 

 with the Bureau of Markets and Crop Estimates and the State au- 

 thorities for the purpose of aiding in the development of a govern- 

 mental market news service that will give authentic information. 



PATRONAGE DIVIDENDS BY COOPERATIVE SELLING AGENCIES. 



The packers and stockyards act requires strict adherence to the 

 published schedules of rates and charges of commission agencies 

 and does not permit rebating, but provides that the distribution on a 

 patronage basis of excess earnings of cooperative associations among 

 their bona fide members on their live stock does not constitute a vio- 

 lation of these requirements. However, in some of the plans of co- 

 operative organizations, provision was made for the payment of 

 patronage dividends to anyone who might utilize the services of the 

 cooperative associations for marketing his products without regard 

 to whether he was a member or not. This question has been taken 

 up informally with each of the associations involved, with the result 

 that they are now confining their plans for the payment of patronage 

 dividends exclusively to bona fide members. This does not prevent 

 them from doing business with nonmembers and adding the surplus 

 earnings derived therefrom to their dividends, provided they make 

 no refunds or deductions from the scheduled rates and charges to the 

 nonmembers. 



Numerous other matters involving special handling, such as ques- 

 tions of proper assignment of pens to the various agencies in stock- 

 yards, better railroad service, the inhumane handling and injury of 

 live stock through the use of clubs and other improper implements, 

 disputes arising out of the mixing of live stock in the yards, whole- 

 some feed and proper feed charges, and the like, have been disposed 

 of locally by live-stock market supervisors without formal action. 



It is the aim of the Packers and Stockyards Administration to de- 

 velop as far as possible the disposition on the part of local agencies 

 to adopt proper rules and standards of conduct and to enforce them 

 without interference or compulsion by the Government. For ex- 

 ample, the commission men in one of the important markets where 

 there is no exchange very early appealed to the Packers and Stock- 

 yards Administration to establish rules in that market which would 

 prevent certain practices that were looked upon as wasteful and to 

 some extent unfairly competitive, but which the commission men had 

 not previously felt able to stop. It was pointed out to them that the 



