Midland Cooperator

Guffey
Moves
To
Continue
Anti-Co-op
U. S.
Coal
Act

By JOHN CARSON
(Washington Representative
The Cooperative League)

Washington, D. C. - Senator Joseph F. Guffey of Pennsylvania last week introduced a Senate Joint Resolution to extend the Bituminous Coal act for two more years. The act expires April 26.

Because of discrimination now practiced under the act against cooperatives, discrimination which in some instances amounts to complete confiscation of cooperative wholesale coal business, The Cooperative League of the USA advised Guffey several weeks ago that before legislation was prepared to extend the Act, an agreement should be reached on proper amendments to protect the rights of the cooperatives. Guffey ignored the suggestion. His resolution would extend the Act as is.

Provides For Price-Fixing

The Act provides for the fixing of prices at the mines for all kinds of bituminous coal but also establishes standards so that the fixed mine prices become, in effect, prices in the various markets throughout the country. The coal producers are then permitted to pay, out of the fixed prices, an allowance called a "discount," to "distributors" for the sale of coal. The "distributors" are wholesale coal dealers.

In addition to recognizing "distributors," the Coal act provides for recognition of "bona fide and legitimate farmers' cooperative organizations" whether or not they paid "patronage dividends" or "discounts" and permits coal producers to pay "such cooperative organizations 'discounts, commissions, rebates, or dividends,'" ordinarily paid to profit wholesalers.

Midland Is Hit

Discriminations under the Act, as it has been interpreted by the Coal Division of the Department of the Interior, are as follows:

Wholesale cooperatives such as Midland Cooperative Wholesale and Central Cooperative Wholesale, which have not been recognized as "farmer cooperatives," have been denied registration as either "distributors" or "farmer cooperatives" and thus have been given no discounts by coal producers. Retail cooperatives have been loyally assisting Midland to pay the expenses of its wholesale coal business while Midland and Central Cooperative Wholesale have carried on their fight for recognition as "distributors."

The Coal Division, while refusing so far to state formally in testimony that if a cooperative returned savings on its coal business to its members it would thereby violate the minimum price provisions of the law, indicated very clearly that such was its opinion. But cooperative wholesales which the Coal Division has, or might, recognize as "bona fide and legitimate farmers' cooperatives" such as Indiana and Ohio Farm Bureau Cooperative Associations, have also been denied commissions or discounts equal to those given to profit wholesalers.