GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 495 



you wish, I would be happy to have him discuss some of their findings 

 with regard to the difficukies involved in the administration of corn 

 quotas. 



It is entirely up to the committee, however. 



Mr. Pace. We are trying to get to him. I do say it must be admitted 

 that the high percentage of your crop that is fed on the farm and the 

 high percentage that goes to silage does present a problem that is 

 peculiar to corn. 



I think that must be admitted. It presents a problem with which 

 this committee will have extreme difficulty. 



Getting back briefly to tlie general program, Mr. Kline, on page 3 

 of your statement you say that we can and must have a more stable 

 general price level. How can you reconcile that statement with the 

 flexible price-support program? What is stable about flexible price 

 supports ? 



Mr. Kline. Again, Mr. Chairman, I must make a very brief answer 

 but apologize, not because of any failure on my part but because the 

 proposition is a complicated one. The brief answer is this : We believe 

 rliat we can maintain a tremendously greater number of the advan- 

 tages of the free-enterprise system by working in the area of main- 

 taining a more stable general price level than we can by fixing hun- 

 dreds of different prices of specific commodities. 



Mr. Pace. You mean this stable price level to apply not only to 

 f aim commodities, but to all commodities ? 



Mr. Kline. The general price level is the price of money expressed 

 in goods and services, tlie weighted average of the j^rice of money. 



We have an index on the general price level long-time curves show- 

 ing inflation in the Napoleonic war. the Civil War, and this war. 



That is the general price level. We believe that America must do 

 something in the field of inflation and deflation as it applies to money 

 itself. It is in the field of the collection and spending of public funds, 

 the management of the public debt, the contraction and expansion of 

 credit and money itself. 



That is the monetary and fiscal field. 



Mr. Pace. Well and good, Mr. Kline, but this committee has no 

 jurisdiction over that. 



Mr. Kline. I agree. 



Mr. Pace. The most that we have been able to do is through the 

 parity formula to attach farm prices to those conditions you mention. 

 That seems to me the limit of our jurisdiction. 



Mr. Kline. I believe that is right, but I think it probably is com- 

 plicated by the other situation, regardless of the jurisdiction of the 

 Agriculture Committee. 



On the other hand, the parity formula we are in favor of. We 

 should like to see farmers get 100 percent of parity. We are not in- 

 terested in 90 or 72 or some other figure, but we do not believe that the 

 best way to improve per capita farm income is by the Government 

 fixing prices at a profitable level. 



Mr. Pace. I beg your pardon ? 



Mr. Kline. If I may use an illustration which some committee mem- 

 ber used, sir, this morning, the minimum wage is not a wage which 

 the automobile workers, for instance, would be willing to settle for. I 

 am certain that the automobile workers would not be willing to have 

 the Government set the wage of automobile workers. 



