Farmers Frustrated

Farm prices have stolen a backward march on Leon Henderson, have declined without waiting for a ceiling to be clamped on them. Wheat last week was down 15-c- a bushel from the 1942 high; corn, 5-c-; rye, 28/5 soybeans, 27-c-; cotton, 2-c-: a pound; eggs, 4-c- a dozen.

Before Leon set up his general price top two months ago, he had bellowed time & again that price control could not work unless farm prices were included too. But farm prices, after soaring 44% in the 13 months ending last January, have just wound up four straight months of fairly stable prices. They stopped going up--at least temporarily--three months before Leon temporarily halted the rise in living costs in May.

Actually the decline in major farm prices is just as much a result of Government action as the freeze in the cost of living. Wheat, corn, rye and cotton were all phony prices in the early part of the year, were supported by political loans at 85% of a zooming "parity" and the hope of bigger loans to come. When the Administration froze parity (by freezing other prices), and spread the word that it would not boost loans still higher, speculators ducked out of those commodities in which the Government is holding huge surpluses off the market.

But prices like beef and pork, which are based mainly on real demand, are still climbing.

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