NEW DEAL FARM PROGRAM 



Board accepted some phases of the domestic allotment plan, the features 

 approved being a self-sustained relief system to raise prices and the ad- 

 justment of production according to demand. Perhaps the importance of 

 this last drive lay largely in the fact that it reflected another step in mold- 

 ing the rapidly forming opinion on agricultural relief. 28 



Despite assurances by Wilson and others that the costs for this plan 

 would be shouldered by the producers and not the consumers, objections 

 to it appeared soon. Liberal eastern publications hardly gave a welcome 

 reception to it because it meant higher prices for the nonfarmers. 



The final excuse for the bill is that the manufacturer is already receiving a 

 subsidy through the tariff, and that the farmer must now receive his through 

 the parity plan. In other words, as the manufacturer is supported out of com- 

 pulsory doles from the farmer, the farmer must now be supported out of com- 

 pulsory doles from the manufacturer. This is Alice in Wonderland economics; 

 the mythical islanders who lived by taking in each other's washing begin to 

 seem relatively plausible. What is wrong with a drastic tariff reduction that 

 would open the world's markets to the farmer's products and no longer make 

 it necessary for him to endow the manufacturer? 29 



In similar vein the New Republic objected on the grounds that it would 

 bring about higher living costs. 



Like a protective tariff, it aims to subsidize one section at the expense of an- 

 other. How can such a device be of permanent or lasting benefit? . . . 



. . . Enthusiasts . . . speak of the stimulus which industry would receive if the 

 farmers, selling their crops at higher prices, should come back into the market 

 for industrial products. But what would be the net gain if industrial workers 

 at the same time were compelled to restrict their purchases of industrial prod- 

 ucts because they had to pay more for food and clothing? 30 



One of the most pointed summations of the plight of the farmer and 

 the need for taking prompt action appeared in the conservative Business 



28. Nourse, Davis, and Black, Three Years of the A.A.A., p. 15; Davis, Wheat 

 and the AAA, p. 35. 



29. "The Parity Plan," The Nation, CXXXVI (January 18, 1933), p. 54. 



30. "The Consumer and the Farm Bill," New Republic, LXXIII (January 18, 

 1933), pp. 255-56. 



