GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 1213 



for, that is, to improve the production of our wool and get the highest 

 quaUty we can produce and do the best possible job of marketing, and 

 this is an incentive to do that. 



Mr. PoAGE. It is only a small incentive compared with what the 

 original Brannan plan provides. 



Mr. Jones. That is correct. 



\h\ PoAGE. It seems to me for that very small incentive, which 

 might well be 5 or 10 percent of the total, you are willing to burden 

 the Government, in the first place, with a tremendous amount of 

 bookkeeping, because, say what we may, when you begin to make a 

 bunch of duplicate copies of every individual sale and begin to require 

 a record to be kept of every individual sale, you immediately build 

 up the very thing which we all say we do not want, that is, a big 

 bureaucracy to handle all of these records. And if j^^ou had everybody 

 honest, you would still have the expense of a burdensome and compli- 

 cated calculation of figures, which nobody likes to have to go through 

 with. 



Even if you had everybod}^ honest — and frankly I think you pay 

 too much tribute to the honesty of the wool man or any other group; 

 and, I repeat, I am not imputing to them a dishonesty that I do not 

 impute to anybody else — but I do say there are in this country too 

 many men who are dishonest when they begin to deal with Uncle Sam. 

 A man who would never think of being dishonest with you or with other 

 individuals, a man whom you could trust absolutely to go and make 

 an investment for you and return all of the earnings without any 

 accounting and keeping of books, will get his hand in Uncle Sam's 

 pocket and feel there is nothing wrong about it. It is unfortunate 

 that we have that condition but it exists. 



]\Ir. JoxES. In the first place, I do not believe it would be too 

 difficult a job in getting these certificates of sale in the hands of the 

 proper parties. We feel definitely that the Bureau of Agricultural 

 Economics needs considerable help in the determination of the pounds 

 of wool produced and the prices received. We do not think they have 

 an accurate record now. 



Mr. Pace. In the interest of time, let me make this comment, 

 although I myself am guilty of asking a question about it: Certainly 

 if this committee should authorize a trial run on wool, it is not going 

 to try to legislate on how it should be done. In fact, the purpose of 

 the trial run is to find out where the administrative difficulties are 

 and how it should be handled. Therefore, I am wondering if the 

 committee will agree with me that the details are going to have to be 

 left with the administrative authority and not to this committee. 

 This committee has no authority for putting in the bill that you should 

 use the percentage method. 



Mr. Jones. But you do not mind my bringing it up, do you? 



Mr. Pace. Not at aU. 



Mr. Jones. We think that is the only way in which it is possible 

 to operate it. 



Mr. Pace. But I do not want us to spend the morning discussing 

 details that we are not going to legislate on. In my judgment, that 

 is one of the purposes of the trial program — to find out how it should 

 be handled most effectively and economically to all parties, including 

 the United States Government, 



