SURPLUS FOOD TO BE EATEN, NOT DESTROYED

SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT IN ROCHESTER, N.Y.
An experiment is being made in the United States to prevent the destruction or dumping of " surplus " food and goods.
It has oce.urred to the authorities that there is plenty of red demand for the goods destroyed because of lack of monetary demand.
Can this real demand be satisfied with existing wealth?
Our New York Correspondent describes below this interesting attempt to break through an idiotic economic system.
From Our Own Correspondent The latest New Deal venture in social planning, a food stamp-relief plan, which enables those on relief to purchase surplus commodities at greatly reduced prices, has been launched at Rochester, N.Y. The plan has two objectives : first, to
increase the consumption of surplus farm products; second. to improve the diet and health of low income consumers who are at present unable to buy the right kind of food for a suitable diet.
The stamp relief plan is being administered by the Federal Surplus Commodities Commission, which was formed to assist the Agricultural Adjustment Administration in the latter's attempts to dispose profitably of surplus farm products.
The trial at Rochester has shown good results in its first week, with relief clients purchasing in larger quantities necessary foods at reduced prices. The plan has also enabled Rochester grocers to reduce prices on dietary staples like butter, corn meal, wheat flour, grapefruit, prunes and beans.
BLUE STAMPS FOR ORANGE
According to the stamp plan, relief clients, using the funds allotted them by the Government, are allowed to purchase orange stamps for the purchase of regular foods (i.e., non-surplus commodities); for each $1.00 worth of these orange stamps they are given one halfdollar's worth of blue stamps.
The blue stamps may be used only for the purchase of foods Rated as surplus—butter, eggs, citrus fruits, corn meal and beans. The stamps are deposited by grocers in their own banks, and the Government redeems them for the banks.
The administrators of the plan expect that it will provide assistance to all who are in any way concerned with the production, distribution and consumption of surplus commodities.
Thus farmers with surplus quantities of food on their hands find a ready market for it; wholesalers and retailers are enabled to move huge stores of surplus stocks, and finally, persons on relief are enabled to fill out their diet.
BIG OBSTACLE So far, only one large obstacle to the plan's success has developed. Relief clients are so much in debt that many of them are forced to use the government allotments (in England it would be called a dole) to pay off their pressing debts, and hence they cannot purchase the food stamps.
The food which is purchased through this system is usually sold direct to retailers by the Government from the stocks it has purchased directly from farmers. For this purpose, the Federal Surplus Commodities Commission spent $50,000,000 to buy surplus crops in the fiscal year 1938. The Corn mission is expected to spend $70,000,000 in the fiscal year 1939.
ANOTHER PLAN A practically similar plan, to clothe the needy, was launched last year by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) when it purchased 59,600,000 worth of clothing to give to those on relief.
This purchase included sweaters, dresses, coats and rain-coatsnecessary garments to enable relief clients to work—and is credited with having virtually revitalised the clothing industry.
It is said that the purchases effected the re-hiring of 10,000 workers, and cleared clothiers' shelves of stocks which they had despaired of selling.
The purchases of clothing were hailed by unions in the clothing trade, since the revitalised market brought new hope to the whole trade.
All food purchases are approved by Secretary of Agriculture Wallace, under whose jurisdiction the Agricultural Adjustment Administration naturally falls. The AAA may be termed a successor to the Federal Farm Board, which was established in the Hoover administration. The Federal Farm Board represented the first attempt to control farm prices. The Board, under Hoover, bought cotton and wheat, but when buying stopped prices declined sharply, and finally the Board was liquidated at a loss of $200,000,000.
DISAPPROVAL With the advent of the first New Deal, the Farm Board was abolished and the Roosevelt administration inaugurated the practice of making loans on surplus commodities.
Loans were used to finance farmers desiring to withhold crops until markets improved. Farmers were thus reimbursed by the Government for not raising certain crops, or for limiting their crops to a quantity which would be easily disposable.
The crop limitation policy, since it involved ploughing under every third row of cotton, and birth control for hogs, among other such limitations, in the face of crying need for food and clothing, brought the administration under a galling fire of criticism, which led the administration social planners to attempt other schemes of surplus crop distribution.
One can readily see why these various plans intended to relieve the glut of surplus markets do not meet with universal approval.
Wholesalers and retailers have expressed their resentment at the Government's " entrance into business," while, of course, the commission merchants, who depend on the middleman's profit, are especially resentful, since the Government purchasing agents ignore the middleman, and deal directly with both farmer and ultimate consumer.
UNPOPULAR MOVE Another angle of the surplus food disposal problem arose very recently when the President directed the purchase of canned Argentine beef for Navy supplies. In res doing he slighted the beef growers of Texas, who
NEW YORK.
are demanding that the Navy " buy American."
The President's reply was that Argentine canned beef was of firstclass quality, since the second-class beef was readily disposable in the Argentine, whereas the American canned beef was of second class, since only that class of beef is canned in the States.
Behind the President's interest in premier beef is his concern over appeasing the Argentinians, whose fresh beef has been banned from the States by a sanitary ruling which the Argentine growers claim is untruly founded and unjustly enforced.
The beef controversy recalls the antiAmerican attitude of the Argentine delegation at the Lima Pan-American Congress. According to reliable authorities, most of the Argentine sentiment against the United States rises out of vexation with our barriers against Argentine trade.
HOW FAR MAY A STATE INTERFERE?
The disposal of surplus American beef, along with the disposal of other surplus food and agricultural products like tobacco and cotton, raises the question of just how far the Government should intervene in industry.
Naturally there are the diehard individualists who would prefer " rugged individualism " to any sort of Government aid or intervention; there are those who feel no need for Government aid. And there are, on the other hand, the many crop growers embarrassed by their riches. The plight of the latter may be demonstrated by the increasing acceptance of crop quota plans in referenda taken among farmers.
These various schemes, like all New Deal inventions and devices, are the subject of much discussion pro and con.
The American people have not yet accepted the principle of Government Intervention; on the contrary very many of them cherish the aauve gui peut policies of laissez-faire individualism.
Aid of any sort from the Government is to them the highest treason against their notions of " American freedom," " American free enterprise," and so forth—hence. for one thing, Americans proudly decline a dole. In its place they will accept three or four pounds a week for two or three days " made work," as in the Works Progress Projects.
As for the very latest venture in social planning, the food relief plan, It is too early to make any useful appraisal of its worth. Since the Rochester reports were favourable, the scheme will next be tried in Toledo, Ohio, and then, probably, in other middle-sized cities.