The Cio News

Congress 'Fighting 40' Urge Subsidies to Aid Farmers, Consumers

WASHINGTON, July 17—In a major declaration of unity between farmers and consumers, the "Fighting Forty" Congressmen who belong to the newly formed Committee for the Protection of Farmers this week declared that the price rollback must be achieved by subsidies which will protect both farmers and consumers.

"We propose a program of price control and rollback which will guarantee that there shall be no reduction in the prices farmers receive," the committee said in the statement released by its chairman, Rep. Thomas Scanlon (D., Pa.).

"Such guarantees can be made by appropriate legislation. Subsidies provide the means by which it is possible to roll back prices without having the cost rolled back on the farmer."

Basic approach on the war food problem must be "that of assisting farmers to increase food production," the committee said. This must include aid to the farmers in shifting from non-essential to essential crops, as well as in producing more food, in stopping wastage of land and other resources, and in helping them on market problems.

This will have to be done despite the opposition of the so-called "farm block" that does not represent the working farmer but rather the food monopolies and the inflation gang that has been working all along in Congress against subsidies and against price control, the statement added.

HIT SCARCITY PLAN

"Their (the farm bloc's) present 'solution' to the food problem is not to increase production—this they have always opposed—but to reduce consumption standards. By creation of scarcity and the attempt to wreck price control and block subsidies they are attempting to lead us directly into inflation and chaos," the committee charged.

Total food production calls for complete mobilization and use of all our resources, which means long-range planning "built on the principles of local, democratic participation in the food production programs," as opposed to the present way of leaving the food program wholly unplanned.

Farm production "cannot be turned on and off merely by pushing a button," the statement pointed out, and because of the long-term risks farmers undertake when they convert one crop to another, or when they expand production, they must be protected against losses which otherwise would put them out of business.

SUBSIDIES WELL KNOWN

"The government has been paying out subsidies in order to bring high-cost mines into operation and it has been using incentive payments in order to stimulate extra production necessary to the war even though its per unit cost is higher," the committee stated.

"There is no reason why such payments should be denied the farmers. If they are to increase production and shift their farm plans to meet war needs they should be safeguarded against loss and their extra costs should be met."

In a final section of the statement, which was signed for the committee by Reps. Scanlon, McMurray (D., Wis.), Feighan (D., Ohio), Marcantonio (ALP, N.Y.), Holifield (D., Cal.), Rogers (D., Cal.) and Burdick (R., N.D.), the committee said:

"It is our firm conviction that there is a community of interest between the farmers and consumers. It is to the interest of the farmers and of all other consumers to prevent inflation just as much as it is to their interest to win the war."