In the past the Government has spent vast sums to bring land under cultivation.  It is apparent that this has reached temporarily the saturation point.  We have had a surplus of production and a poor market for land, which has only lately shown signs of improvement.  The main problem which is presented for solution is one of dealing with a surplus of production.  It is useless to propose a temporary expedient.  What is needed is permanency and stability.  Government price fixing is known to be unsound and bound to result in disaster.  A Government subsidy would work out in the same way.  It can not be sound for all of the people to hire some of the people to produce a crop which neither the producers nor the rest of the people want.

Price fixing and subsidy will both increase the surplus, instead of diminishing it.  Putting the Government directly into business is merely a combination of subsidy and price fixing aggravated by political pressure.  These expedients would lead logically to telling the farmer by law what and how much he should plant and where he should plant it, and what and how much he should sell and where he should sell it.  The most effective means of dealing with surplus crops is to reduce the surplus acreage.  While this can not be done by the individual farmer, it can be done through the organizations already in existence, through the information published by the Department of Agriculture, and especially through banks and others who supply credit refusing to finance an acreage manifestly too large.

It is impossible to provide by law for an assured success and prosperity for all those who engage in farming.  If acreage becomes overextended, the Government can not assume responsibility for it.  The Government can, however, assist cooperative associations and other organizations in orderly marketing and handling a surplus clearly due to weather and seasonal conditions, in order to save the producer from preventable loss.  While it is probably impossible to secure this result at a single step, and much will have to be worked out by trial and rejection, a beginning could be made by setting up a Federal board or commission of able and experienced men in marketing, granting equal advantages under this board to the various agricultural commodities and sections of the country, giving encouragement to the cooperative movement in agriculture, and providing a revolving loan fund at a moderate rate of interest for the necessary financing.  Such legislation would lay the foundation for a permanent solution of the surplus problem.

This is not a proposal to lend more money to the farmer, who is already fairly well financed, but to lend money temporarily to experimental marketing associations which will no doubt ultimately be financed by the regularly established banks, as were the temporary operations of the War Finance Corporation.  Cooperative marketing especially would be provided with means of buying or building physical properties.