GEXERAL FARM PROGRAM 1187 



of 7,000,000 head — part of it deaths after weaning, part of it allow- 

 ance for errors in their estimates. 



If the subsidy came to $10 a head, that would be a minimum of 

 $730,000,000 on the basis of last year's marketing. And if, as I have 

 pointed out, a time limit were put on it and it not hedged about by 

 unfau" and impractical regulations, so that all hogs changed hands, it 

 could have been $1,400,000,000. This year the spring pig crop has 

 been increased, and if this plan goes through the fall crop will almost 

 be as large as the spring crop, or at least it will be greatly increased. 



Inspected slaughter in 1949 will be near 50,000,000 head, other dis- 

 appearance raised proportionately except farm slaughter. So it 

 would be unsafe to figure on a minimum of below $750,000,000 for a 

 year. The maximum could easily run double that. 



In addition, there would be the cost of the labor of all of the men 

 to check the various sales, do the book work, and \\Tite the checks. 

 As I have pointed out, there would be around 4,000,000 sales under 

 federally inspected slaughter, to check. Just how many sales were 

 involved in the estimated "other wholesale and retail" slaughter, 

 there is positively no possible way of knowing. But this involved 

 the sales to the local butcher, the locker-space renter, and so forth, 

 which means they would be mostly m lots of one head at a time. It 

 would take as much time, almost, and probably a whole lot more 

 work, to inspect each of these as to inspect the sale of a full carload at 

 the market. And in addition there would be the sales of one farmer 

 to another of the hogs slaughtered on farms, to say nothing of the 

 sales to get under the deadline at the en'd of the period. 



So there would be a minimum of 15,000,000 sales — and it might be 

 a whole lot more than that. How many men as field inspectors it 

 would take to make these inspections is anybody's guess. Back of 

 each field mspector would need to be the clerks in the office. And 

 how much the cost of such a force would be is another guess that I 

 would not care to hazard. Certainly it would not reduce the cost of 

 Government, nor permit any more then of the declining income taxes 

 to go toward payment on the national debt. 



Mrs. Consumer, according to population, would pay approximately 

 four-fifths of this load. Accompanying herewith is a pictograph of 

 meat consumption and the hours worked per week by labor. Study 

 of this discloses that as the number of hours per week worked by labor 

 has declined, in the past, meat consumption per capita also declines. 

 During the days of heavy unemployment in the early thirties, meat 

 consumption declined to as low as 115 pounds per capita. 



I am firmly convinced that the Government estimate of meat con- 

 sumption per capita this year is high by at least 15 pounds per capita. 

 I think their estimate has been high all during the war. In 1946, for 

 instance, I do not see why the butcher shops would have been com- 

 pelled to close for so many days a week, selling cold meats which 

 consisted mostly of cereal, or boning out whole carcasses of beef and 

 grinding it into hamburger so everyone would get some, if consump- 

 tion had been above 140 pounds per capita. With our current popu- 

 lation, it would have required the services of every retailer and everj^ 

 packer in the country on a full schedule, to have distributed that much 

 meat. Black markets are a result, not a cause. 



Right now unemployment is increasing at rates which are not at 

 all croorl. One of the largest industrial concerns in Chicago is cutting 



