GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 691 



have the authority to recognize our efforts and to set it amnvhere 

 between the minimum and the maximum. 



Mr. Pace. Now, then, you recommend, in the second place, that 

 he be required to take off quotas whenever your supply does not 

 exceed 120 percent of parity. That means he takes off quotas only 

 when 3^our support gets down to 66 percent of parity. 



Mr. Hughes. Our point on that was this: The Secretary will be 

 required to ask for a vote or referendum on market quotas before 

 July 1 previous to the time winter wheat is seeded, July 1 preceding 

 the year in vdiich harvest will be made. Similar situations, such as 

 occurred in Kansas in the fall of 1947 — ^in Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, 

 and that area — might occur whereby you might get no rain for seeding 

 and getting your wheat up, and about May 1 it might be determined 

 there was going to be a very small crop of wheat and might result in a 

 shortage. Are they going to have a right then to vote again on that? 



Mr. Pace. I can see that, but why do not you say under those 

 circumstances he could take it off where the supply is not going to 

 exceed the normal supply? Why make it 120 percent of the normal 

 supply? 



Mr. Hughes. That is done because the supply has to get to 120 

 percent before he can call for a vote. We felt, when that went below 

 that definitely, he should have a vote or a referendum. We did not 

 want to tie his hands, more or less for the protection of the consumer 

 and to protect the Government under the international wheat agree- 

 ment. We would not want to freeze quotas if something happened 

 after he made the determination and we voted on it. 



Mr. Pace. Wliere do you get the idea he could not proclaim quotas 

 until it got to 120 percent? 



Mr. Hughes. It was my understanding that the estimated supply 

 has to reach 120 percent of normal before he can ask for a referenclum. 



xVlr. Pace. I understood it was 115 percent. Now, you propose 

 one thing that is very intriguing to me, Mr. Hughes. Fanny things 

 happen in this country, and I am delighted today to learn that the 

 Department is giving some thought to uniformity. For some reason, 

 the Secretary has never permitted the cotton growers to operate 

 merely on acreage allotments; he has always put on quotas and noth- 

 ing but quotas on the cotton grov/ers. That is all right. They have 

 accepted them. But, on the other hand, for reasons sufficient to the 

 Secretarj^, from time to time he has never put quotas on corn but has 

 operated only on acreage allotments, and I presume at some time or 

 other he has operated on wheat only with acreage allotments. 



Now, do 3'ou agree with me that a recommendation of this character 

 put into effect should apply to all commodities alike? 



Mr. Hughes. I would go so far as to say there might be reason to 

 vary the percentage of supply that would be on hand before quotas 

 were put mto effect. I think I would be safe m saymg we would 

 expect the growers of other crops to take that means of adjusting 

 their production if acreage allotments did not get the job done. 



Mr. Pace. You know as well as I do that acreage allotments do 

 not control; you know that. You know, also, that the corn growers 

 do not want quotas and, in my own judgment, there are a lot of wheat 

 growers who do not want them unless they have to have them. 



Mr. Hughes. That is risht. 



