7ht RURAL NEW-YORKER 
763 
The McNary-Haugen Farm Relief Bill 
T HERE will be a bitter fight in Congress over 
what is known as the McNary-Haugen bill. It 
has been favorably reported, and the debate, soon to 
come, will find the money interests of the East 
ranged against the farm interests of the West. 
Party lines will be broken. This bill results from 
efforts to help the wheat growers of the Northwest, 
but it has been broadened to cover all farm products 
the price of which is affected by export trade. It is 
designed to take care of any surplus and stabilize 
prices. A corporation board, including the Sec¬ 
retary of Agriculture, is to be appointed by the Pres¬ 
ident. The board, to be financed by the government, 
is authorized to go into the American market and 
buy quantities of such export crops as are selling at 
less than previous exchange values. It may buy 
until the price rises high enough to equal this ex¬ 
change value. The corporation holds this surplus 
until it can be sold abroad or disposed of to good 
advantage here. The “ratio price” demanded for 
these products will be based upon their purchasing 
power before the war. To cover the cost of handling 
this corporation and providing against loss, a part 
of the price will be paid in government certificates. 
These certificates, as commercial paper, will to some 
extent increase the circulating medium about as 
other commei’cial paper does. 
The bill is complicated and hard to explain in a 
brief statement, but its object avowedly is to in¬ 
crease prices of exportable farm products by taking 
the surplus off the market and creating a price equal 
to the purchasing power of such products before the 
war. The government advances the needed money 
to *tart the enterprise, but it is claimed that in time 
the corporation will run itself on sales of prodxicts 
abroad. At present the plan would affect the wheat 
growers and probably the live stock men. At this 
time the cotton growers do not need such a law, 
though there have been times during the past 25 
years when stability of prices would have been a 
blessing to them. 
The plan has the well-nigh solid support of the 
Western people, who see in it a guarantee of stable 
and living prices for their products, practically guar¬ 
anteed by the government. Naturally that will mean 
a great improvement in the economic condition of 
farmers. Should the plan work as they claim it will, 
they can count on a fair margin of profit, while now 
they must sell at less than the cost of production. 
This would increase the purchasing and debt-paying 
power of farmers by millions, and make itself felt in 
all lines of industry. Usually when plans of this 
sort for Western relief come before Congress they 
ai*e opposed by Southern Congressmen becaxxse cotton 
and its prices are not considered. In this case cot¬ 
ton as a large export crop would come under the 
provisions of this law, and the South will be satis¬ 
fied. The fight in Congress will come between rep¬ 
resentatives of the agricultural West and the manu¬ 
facturing and money-lending East. Thei*e are few 
Eastern farm products which develop any great 
export trade except apples. 
Many Eastern Congressmen will vote for the bill 
on the ground that while they do not consider it 
economically sound, they feel that the serious condi¬ 
tion of Western farmers justifies this experiment. 
The Eastern Cogressmen generally will claim that 
this is a “price-fixing” measure, and that any at¬ 
tempt to fix prices artificially will fail. The friends 
of the bill deny that it aims to fix prices, but rather 
to stabilize them. The enemies of the bill claim that 
it will increase production, involve the country in 
debt; in fact, they claim that it is “a dangerous 
political crime.” It will be a hot sectional fight, 
with the present chances in favor of the bill’s pas¬ 
sage, on the theory that some relief must be had, 
and this is the xnost promising experiment. 
The Proposed New Co-operative Law 
T HERE is considei*able i*equest for an explana¬ 
tion of the Sapiro co-operative bill which passed 
in both branches of the New York Legislature and 
is now in the hands of Governor Smith for approval. 
The measure was subjected to some suspicion from 
the cii’cximstance that it was introdxxeed on Thurs¬ 
day of the last week of the session, and the hearing 
was called for the following Monday. Farmers did 
not have an opportunity to study the bill. 
The bill authorizes non-profit co-operative farm 
associations, with or without capital stock, to do 
anything that can be done by stock or membership 
corporations except banking, insurance and trails- 
portation. It authorizes contracts between the asso¬ 
ciation and members, requiring the members to sell 
their pi’oducts exclusively to or through the associa¬ 
tion for five years, or the contract may continue in 
force indefinitely, with the privilege of withdrawal 
after five years. The contracts may provide, among 
other things, that the association may sell or re-sell 
the products delivered by its members, with or with¬ 
out talcing title thereto; and pay over to its members 
the re-sale price, or pool price, in case of pooling of 
sales, after deducting all necessary selling, ovei 1 - 
head and other costs and expenses, including inter¬ 
est or dividends on stock, not exceeding eight per 
centum per annum, and any other deductions. 
In case of a breach of contract the by-laws may 
fix the amount of liquidated damages which the 
member must pay to the association, and, further, 
the member must pay costs, premiums on bonds, ex¬ 
penses and fees in a suit brought against the mem¬ 
ber by the association. 
In the event of a bi'each of the contract, or of a 
threatened breach, the association is given the right 
of an injunction, requiring member to perfonn the 
contract. 
It is made unlawful for any person, firm or cor¬ 
poration to buy, receive or offer for sale the products 
of a member which are covered by the contract with 
the association, and the offending person, firm or 
corporation is made liable to a fine of $100 for each 
contract. The association is also entitled to an in¬ 
junction to restrain such persons, firms or corpora¬ 
tions from further transactions of the kind. 
It is made a misdemeanor for any person to ma¬ 
liciously or knowingly spread false reports about the 
finances or management or activities of an associa¬ 
tion. The fine for each offence is not less than $100 
nor more than $1,000. The offender is also liable to 
the association in a civil suit to the penal sum of 
$500. 
No association organized under the act and com¬ 
plying with its terms shall be deemed to be a con¬ 
spiracy or in restraint of trade or an illegal monop¬ 
oly, nor shall the contracts be considered unlawful 
or to accomplish an illegal purpose. 
Associations having members in mox-e than one 
county and operating in them and affiliated with 
local associations, may provide for the election of 
delegates to represent the members in meetings of 
the association, and a vote of the delegate shall be 
deemed the same as a vote of the members. 
The association is authorized to pay its officers 
and directors for their services, and the president, 
secretary, treasurer and members of the executive 
committee may receive salary or substantially full 
time pay. 
Assuming that the charter and by-laws of an asso¬ 
ciation are drawn and a contract executed in har¬ 
mony with the provisions and spirit of this proposed 
law, the farmer will be under contract to deliver his 
product for five years to the association, which may 
sell it or manufacture it, or store it, and pay for it 
only when the association elects to do so, after tak¬ 
ing out expenses, losses, overhead charges, and any 
other deductions. It might hold a product in storage 
for the full five years, and the member could not 
enforce the re-sale of it or collect a cent for it. If 
in desperation he refused to continue deliveries, the 
firm that bought it or offered it for sale, would be 
subject to fine, and injunction and civil suit for dam¬ 
ages. The court would have no choice but to order 
continuance of the deliveries, and a judgment for 
liquidated damages for each separate offence. Fur¬ 
thermore, the costs of the action would be included 
in the judgment. If he complained that the holding 
of his products in storage was unjust to him, or that 
the association had caused him hardship in neglect¬ 
ing to pay more promptly, or that the net returns 
were too small, or that the management of his asso¬ 
ciation was extravagant or wasteful or inefficient, 
he would be guilty of a misdemeanor, and subject to 
a fine of not more than $1,000 nor less than $100. 
It will occur to some to say that this is an extreme 
picture, and that no association would have wish ox- 
occasion to do anything of the kind. The picture 
does seem extreme, but recently a tobacco grower in 
Kentucky bi-ought suit to compel an association, or¬ 
ganized under a similar law, to pay for tobacco that 
had been held in storage for two years, and the 
court held that the association was within its rights 
under the law and contract. In another instance an 
association was admittedly insolvent. Unless its 
members paid an assessment it could not go on. 
Under these circumstances a member sold his pro¬ 
duct elsewhere. He is now defending a suit for 
breach of conti-act, and under this law would pay 
the costs on both sides of the case. 
In local associations where the members ai-e all 
neighbors, with common interests and an equal voice 
in the management, thei-e is no danger to the mem¬ 
ber in any rule or any law, because what affects one 
concerns all, and if a rule or a policy does not work 
it is easily changed, or the whole scheme may be 
abandoned. But the centralized association is quite 
a different thing. Its memhex-s are widely distrib¬ 
uted. They have no power to change the rules or 
the laws, the management or the policies. There is 
therefoi-e a great hazard in signing an improvident 
conti-act with a centralized association when the con¬ 
tract itself, the by-laws and the statute law, are all 
one-sided against the individual member. In local 
associations the same contract may be signed with 
impunity, because if it works a hardship the mem¬ 
bers can change it. Not so in the centralized power. 
There the rigor of the rule is never relaxed. The 
lawyei*, the pi*omoter and the pi-ofessional leader are 
there to enforce the rigor of the law. 
The provisions of this pi-oposed law are entii-ely 
foreign to our conception of the principles of co-op- 
ei-ation. If enfox-ced. we believe they would ulti¬ 
mately defeat and destroy the whole co-operative 
movement. A scheme that needs such desperate 
measures to keep pi-oducers in it after they enter 
with a free will, must have some fundamental eco¬ 
nomic weakness. 
We think Governor Smith should veto the bill. 
May Prices for Milk 
T HE pool pi-ice for May milk has been announced 
as follows: 
Class 1 .$2.33 
Class 2A. 2.00 
Class 2 B. . O 05 
Class 2C .* * * 2*05' 
Class 3 . \ \ [ i*60 
Class 4 is the usual butter and cheese terms. The 
changes are 10 cents x-eduction in Class A and 35 
cents in Class 3, which is milk for manufacture into 
condensed milk. The fancy hard cheese is now in¬ 
cluded in this class. 
The non-pool all-milk price is $1.95, and its Class 
1 price is $2.15. 
Its all-milk price for April was $2.15, showing a 
reduction from April of 20 cents. Its Class 1 price 
for April was $2.30, showing an April drop of 15 
cents. 
Sheffield Farms all-milk price is $2. This is 20 
cents less than their April price. 
Is the Poultry Business Being Overdone 
It certainly looks that way, at least in New England. 
According to the statistics fux-nished by the United 
States Department of Economics, the number of chick¬ 
ens on farms Jan. 1 of this year is 474,000,000. This is 
50,000,000 more than last year, and 115,000,000 more 
than on Jan. 1, 1920, an increase of almost a third in 
four years. 
The population inci-ease from 1920 to 1923 was 6.3 
per cent; the egg production increase in the same period 
was 33.3 per cent. Thex*e is little, if any, hope that 
export trade will absorb much of this increased pro¬ 
duction. But we are eating more eggs than we used to. 
The consumption of hens’ eggs, excluding those set for 
hatching, was 14.6 dozens in 1920, 16.5 dozens in 1921, 
16.9 dozens in 1922, and 18.6 dozens in 1923; an in¬ 
crease of 27 per cent in three years. 
Notwithstanding the increased production there was 
a gain in price—the average price—in 1923 over the 
price in 1922, of 5.4 per cent. This Spring of 1924. 
however, has shown a loss in price; they are lower than 
a year ago. 
It will be news to many poultrymen that we import 
about 16,000,000 lbs. of dried and frozen eggs, mainly 
from China. The tariff on these eggs was increased, 
with the result that the importation in 1923 was about 
12 per cent less than in 1922. 
The dressed poultry situation is different. On March 
1 the stock in cold stoi-age was over 17 per cent less 
than a year ago; it was even less than the five-year 
average. This favorable situation of the frozen stock 
will permit the marketing of an increase of fresh 
dressed poultry without much loss in price. This sit¬ 
uation does not hold as to turkeys. There is a larger 
stock of turkeys in cold storage than ever before. 
There is no doubt in my mind that the year 192-1 
will see the largest number of chickens hatched and 
raised that this country ever produced. The question 
is, will consumption proportionately increase? If not, 
then lower prices are inevitable. Well-managed poul¬ 
try plants will live; poorly-managed ones will fail; and 
the relentless law of supply and demand will go on 
working as it always has, and must. 
The wheat situation is an example. According to 
the United States Department of Agriculture 108.000 
farmers in the wheat growing States lost their farms 
by foreclosure or bankruptcy ; 122,000 lost theirs with¬ 
out legal proceedings, and 373,000 are living on tbeir 
farms only by the leniency of their creditors. Yet a 
baking company in New York declares a dividend of 
118 per cent! 
In 1923 the farmer receives less than 1% cents 
(1.47) for the wheat in a pound of bread; but the pub¬ 
lic pays from 9 to 12 cents for that same loaf. I get 
two loaves for 25 cents here in Connecticut. 
Well, why doesn’t the farmer organize? 
GEORGE A. COSGROVE. 
