"To Clear The Ports"

A towering apparition of the 1928 presidential campaign was the Equalization Fee for Farm Relief. Urged by Senator Borah and other Insurgent Republicans, it was decried by regular Republicans as an economic horror. Under it, the U. S. would have bought surplus wheat from farmers at market prices less a fixed fee, shipped the wheat abroad to sell for what it would bring. The Government's losses on the transaction would have been "equalized" in part by the farmers' fee.

Last week the Federal Farm Board announced its own long-awaited plan to sell wheat abroad. This plan resembled the Equalization Fee plan in all respects save one: instead of the farmer's sharing the Government's loss, the Government would suffer alone. The Board had bought 140.- 000,000 bu. of the farmer's surplus wheat. Now it was going to export 35,000,000 bu. of "choice milling quality'' stored along the Atlantic and Pacific sea-boards. Its purpose was "to clear the ports of facilities for taking care of the 1931 crop."

This Farm Board announcement caused a 2 1/2 per bu. break in the Chicago wheat market. Many a grain trader assumed that the Board was starting to unload its huge wheat holdings.

When representatives to a European grain conference at Paris last week (which accomplished nothing) learned of the Farm Board's export plan, they raised an anxious cry: "Dumping!" Quick were they to point out that by putting 35,000,000 bu. on the already depressed European wheat market the U. S. would be doing the very thing about which it had complained most bitterly against Soviet Russia. Resentful of this foreign criticism, Farm Board Chairman Legge retorted: "Sheer bunk and Bolshevik! No comparison! Russian wheat was sold at prices far below world prices but wheat from the U. S. will not be sold for less than the prevailing world price." He intimated that the Farm Board would get better than world prices for its wheat because of its high quality.

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