490 GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 



Mr. Kline. I think the point is well taken. 



Mr. Pace. Then do you agree that there is a point in the con- 

 . sumption of agricultural commodities and in price where there comes 

 consumer resistance ? 



Mr. Kline. Yes. 



Mr. Pace. Then if raising the minimum wage to Y5 cents an hour 

 would increase the cost of processing and the handling and the trans- 

 porting and the retailing of food and thereby more nearly approach 

 the price where consumer resistance becomes active, would that not 

 further bring about a drive upon the appropriations committee for 

 the appropriation of funds to use by w^ay of payments in order to 

 reduce the cost of food to the consumer ? 



Mr. Kline. I believe that is right. 



Mr. Pace. I have great difficulty in understanding your attitude on 

 this point, when there is not one word in the Aiken bill, and may I 

 add, not one word in the proposal of the Secretary of Agriculture, giv- 

 ing the slightest assurance to the consumer that if production pay- 

 ments are made the consumer will benefit thereby.* 



Do you understand what I mean ? By Avay of making that clear, 

 as we have all said, the price of wheat has gone down about 20 or 25 

 percent in a year's time. 



Yet, the American housewife today is paying identically the same 

 price for bread that she was a year ago. Therefore, is it not possible 

 and likely that if production payments are made to the farmer in 

 order to give him an income at which he can sell his crops in a free 

 market, that it may result merely in a further increase of the profits 

 of the middlemen and that the consumer will enjoy no benefit from it? 



Mr, Kline. I recognize the possibility there and as a personal 

 opinion, I think such a program which guarantees high prices to 

 farmers and low prices to consumers or suggests by inference that that 

 is its end, would inevitably take over, in addition to the control of 

 prices, the distribution, transportation, and other costs in between. 



Mr. Pace. But you do not know ? 



Mr. Kline, I certainly do not. 



Mr. Pace. Yet you say, "Let's leave the things in the law." 



Mr. Kline, We leave it in the law in a far different position, how- 

 ever, than it has been sugegsted. 



Mr, Pace, But Mr, Kline, 3'ou propose to leave it in the law in the 

 light of administration by the Secretary of Agriculture who has come 

 here and explained how he proposes to use it and Avhich proposal you 

 condemn, 



Mr, Kline. I agree with that. On the other hand, we have the 

 difficulty in the nonbasic field of finding an effective way to do anything. 



Mr, Pace, All right, I am taking no exceptions there. I have said 

 in this committee that there may be two or three or a dozen commod- 

 ities where the payment plan is the only way to bring about the assur- 

 ance to the producer. 



I have made no blanket condemnation of the plan as such but I do 

 say that the Congress should determine when, if, and how it should be 

 used. 



But you do not say so. You say that you propose to leave in this 

 law one word "payments," without any definition, without any limi- 

 tations, without any instructions, and you leave it to a man who has 



