INFORIVIATION RELATING TO AGRICULTURAL ECONOMY IN GENERAL 83 



tirely of xepreseD+atives of producers and consumers, being- elected b}' the 

 peasants, the working-class organizations, the co-operative societies and 

 the local employees of the rural zemstv^os. 



Each committee elects its own chairman. The chairman of a provin- 

 cial committee acts as local representative of the Ministry of Agricvdture. 



The Duties of the Commutees. — The committees have the fml local 

 control of the food supply, and are charged to carry out the orders of the 

 Central Council, acting through the Ministry of Agriculture, and to promote 

 agricultural production and secure as far as possible a supply of the neces- 

 sanes of life within their respective areas. 



In order to fulfil these duties a prOvancial committee may take a cen- 

 sus of available food supplies, issue regulations for the delivery and sto- 

 '-age of grain, requisition supplies, fix prices and regulate the distribution of 

 food. A town or district commHtce acts on the instructions of a provin- 

 cial committee and shares its functions. A rural district committee has 

 the further right to take a census of the rural population, of the area under 

 crops and of the available stock of cattle ; and it must organize the collect- 

 ing, receiving and forwarding of food supplies. 



The comnuttees appoint from among their members their own execu- 

 tives (ttprava), saving that two members of the executive of each commit- 

 tee are appointed by the executive of the local authorit3^ Co-ordination 

 with the latter is thus secured. 



The Pan of Co-opevaM'e Societies. — According to special instructions 

 issued b^'the Ministry of Agriculture, co-operative societies are preferred 

 as purchasers of food, both for the army and for the civil population, to 

 other organizations and to private persons. Co-operati v^e credit unions 

 are especially recommended as purchasers of food because they have con- 

 siderable means of their own and a solid economic organization. 



In practice the executix^es of food committees follow these recommenda- 

 tions. They use the capital of the credit unions to finance their purchases ; 

 they frequently entrust all their purchases to these unions; and they make 

 extensive use of their warehouses for grain. They entrust the task of dis- 

 tributing the bought food among the population to the local consumers' 

 societies. 



In the province of Nijni-Xov^gorod, for instance, the local food com- 

 mittees have suffered the Nijni-Novgorod Union of Small Credit Institutions 

 to buy and store food for them, and have made the same union responsible 

 for supplying to the population tools and metal needed for the repair of 

 agricultural machinery, for repairing such machinery in its own workshop.^, 

 for buying it and for distributing it to the population. All this enterprise 

 is financed entirely by the union, which places its stores and emj^loyees at 

 the service of the food committees. 



UNITED STATES. 

 FEDEK-\Jy FOOD CONTROL ACT. 



This elaborate war measure was signed- by President Wilson on 10 Au- 

 gust. Its object is expressed in the opening section as " to assure an adequate 



