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TABLE 6.—United States: Value of imports of specified dairy products, 1951

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Source: Compiled from reports of the Office of Foreign Agricultural Relations, U. S.. Department of Agriculture.

TABLE 7.-Value of exports of specified dairy products, 1951

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Source: Compiled from reports of the Office of Foreign Agricultural Relations. U. S. Department of Agriculture.

TABLE 8.-Procurement authorizations under the ECA program, by countries of destination, by specified commodities and commodity groups, in millions of dollars, Apr. 3, 1948, to Nov. 30, 1951

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1 Denmark, Ireland, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Trieste, Turkey, and Yugoslavia omitted in country detail.

Source: Reports on the Division of Statistics and Reports, Mutual Security Agency, SR. 6.

TABLE 9.-Percentages of total procurement authorizations,' ECA program, accounted for by specified commodities and commodity groups, total for food, feed, fertilizer, cotton, and tobacco, by countries-Apr. 3, 1948, to Nov. 30, 1951

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1 Denmark, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Trieste, Turkey, and Yugoslavia omitted in country detail.

Source: Reports of the Division of Statistics and Reports, Mutual Security Agency, SR 6.

TABLE 10.-Percentages of total procurement authorizations1 ECA program, by commodities and commodity groups, accounted for by procurement authorizations granted specific countries, Apr. 3, 1948, through Nov. 30, 1951

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1 Denmark, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Trieste, Turkey, and Yugoslavia excluded in country detail.

Source: Reports of the Division of Statistics and Reports, Mutual Security Agency, SR. 6.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Holman, will you come up, sir?

Without objection, Mr. Holman, your statement will be made a part of the record, and also the supplemental statement with the various tables.

STATEMENT OF CHARLES W. HOLMAN, SECRETARY, NATIONAL MILK PRODUCERS FEDERATION

Mr. HOLMAN. I thank the chairman.

In order to conserve time, I have divided my statement into two parts. The first deals with what we call the four cornerstones in the present Defense Production Act for domestic pricing of milk and cream at the farm and its relation to ceilings. These four cornerstones begin with the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937. Under that act the Secretary of Agriculture has jurisdiction over some 44 great milk markets in the United States, and quite a number of secondary markets that are tributary to them. About 160,000 of our dairy-farm families are dependent upon the operation of that particular act, which is based upon a double philosophy. One is the establishment of minimum prices to the producers. The second is the establishment of uniform prices. This makes it difficult for chiseling practices to be created.

The second one is a companion measure, which the committee is very familiar with, known as the Cole-Ives amendment. It is designed to give approximately the same benefits to our dairy farmers that are not under the Marketing Agreement Act. This applies largely to the smaller cities of the United States. It is in the act waiting for the time it may be necessary to use it. It is something of an insurance policy.

The CHAIRMAN. That is the act that we passed last year, is it?
Mr. HOLMAN. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Of course we continued that, as you know, in the bill that I introduced.

Mr. HOLMAN. I did not know the intention of the committee regarding these amendments that I am speaking of.

The CHAIRMAN. The bill I introduced for a 1-year extension carried that.

Mr. HOLMAN. They expire on the 30th day of June, and should be continued in the act.

Senator ROBERTSON. We had a message from the Secretary of Agriculture when we were in conference that they did not know how they could administer it; but they did administer it.

Mr. HOLMAN. They have not found it necessary to do so, yet, because the prices have been reasonably satisfactory. They did not think they could administer it. I think they can, and all of our people who know the practical operations of the marketing of milk know perfectly well that they can.

The third is an amendment in the act which provides that the Office of Price Stabilization may not place ceilings upon milk and cream going into manufactured uses without the consent of the Secretary of Agriculture. That is a very important amendment, we think, and should be continued in the act. It has a very close tie-in with the whole question of supporting prices at times when such supports are necessary. This brings me to the fourth amendment now in the act, namely the exemption of the Agricultural Act of 1949. As you know, it authorizes the Secretary of Agriculture to support prices up to 90 percent of parity; but the Secretary under the act can go further by holding a public hearing under such terms and conditions as he deems fit.

The CHAIRMAN. And raise the parity?

Mr. HOLMAN. They can go above parity, if necessary, under the terms of the act of 1949.

The CHAIRMAN. And under the terms of the act of 1951?

Mr. HOLMAN. The Defense Production Act amendments of 1951.
The CHAIRMAN. Providing he has certain public hearings?
Mr. HOLMAN. Yes; he has to have a public hearing.

The CHAIRMAN. And has to give notice over a certain period of time?

Mr. HOLMAN. He would establish his own procedure under that act. So far that has not been invoked.

The CHAIRMAN. And that covers everything, not only milk, but wheat, or corn, or cotton, provided he held a hearing, notified the people, and public hearings were held, and so forth?

Mr. HOLMAN. That is correct.

The CHAIRMAN. I wanted to get the record straight. Many people have been writing me about that.

Mr. HOLMAN. We believe that those four provisions are essential, and as far as we know there is little or no controversy regarding their retention in the act.

I now come to the one controversial problem that involves us very deeply, and that is the question of continuing section 104. There is no use, as I see it, to go into the principles upon which section 104 is based. The committee is probably more familiar with it than I am. Except I would like to say that this particular section is so drawn that it provides, we believe, all the necessary flexibility of operation on the part of the Secretary of Agriculture that could be provided in an amendment of this kind. While it is true that imports must be controlled when the Secretary finds that injury would otherwise result, the Secretary has almost unlimited discretion in setting up the terms and conditions as to how he shall act.

The CHAIRMAN. Did he have that power in the Second War Powers Act?

Mr. HOLMAN. He had it in the original Second War Powers Act. There were some restrictions in subsequent extensions of the act. Under those powers he exercised various quota controls running through most of the war period, and carrying on until the 31st day of June 1951. Thereafter section 104 took the place of the expired section of the Second War Powers Act.

There are two major arguments which have been made in opposition to the continuation of section 104.

One is the charge, and it has been made on the Senate floor, that the only supporters of section 104 are 22 manufacturers of Blue cheese. Now, our organization has nearly half a million dairy-farm familities in it. We are in 46 States. We have a great number of cooperatively owned dairy plants of all types. There is no manufactured dairy product that I know of that is standard or staple that some of our organizations do not produce. In fact they produce them all. We handle a lot of butter, some of the best butter in the United States. We handle evaporated milk, dry milk, and various other manufactured products, so it is not accurate to say that only 22 cheese manufacturers are interested in section 104.

Senator ROBERTSON. Is the Danish Blue cheese any better than curs?

Mr. HOLMAN. Not any better than some of ours. Senator ROBERTSON. It seems to me to be a little bit more creamy. I am not an expert on cheese, and maybe I do not always get the best domestic cheese, but I am just wondering if they knew how to make it better than we do, or they make a type of it better than all that we make.

Mr. HOLMAN. I can show you Blue cheese that is cured under the same type of conditions that the very best Roquefort cheese is cured in France, and when you cut into it, you cannot tell the difference between the sheep cheese, which is Roquefort cheese, and cow cheese,. which is the Blue cheese. It happens to be made over in the caves of the Mississippi River, in Minnesota, and it is not the only good Bluecheese that we manufacture in the United States.

Senator ROBERTSON. The French long ago exceeded the supply of goat's milk, and they made artificial caves, too.

Mr. HOLMAN. That is true. The Gorgonzola in Italy was made in an attempt to develop an imitation of Roquefort but instead they developed a cheese of their own with very distinctive flavors.

Now, the second argument which seems to be used most is that our commercial exports of dairy products, in the year 1950, exceeded by 21⁄2 times the imports of dairy products in that same period.

Now, we have given a great deal of attention to that, and if the committee will bear with me, I am going to blow it out of the water. We have analyzed the amount of dollars and cents that went into the import and exports of dairy products during the last 4-year period, 1948, 1949, 1950, and 1951. We find that when you take the supplementary American funds that went into the subsidizing-and that is the only word to use for this-of our exports abroad as reported in value by the Bureau of the Census, nonfat dry milk solids amounted to 91 percent, so only 9 percent of our dry milk solids went into actual commercial channels.

Cheese, 75 percent, subsidized.

Butter, 12 percent, subsidized.

Dry whole milk, 6 percent, subsidized.

Evaporated and condensed milk, 18 percent, subsidized.

The average of all dairy products for that period of subsidy, as a part of the so-called price, was 38 percent.

Senator ROBERTSON. That was the amount we gave them?

Mr. HOLMAN. Exactly, we gave it to them, and we would not be having those exports if we did not continue to give them that.

In spite of that, there has been a reduction in the last 2 years of American exports, particularly of milk powder and cheese, due to the fact that these other countries, some of which were formerly selfsufficient, and some of which were on a normal export basis, have been increasing their own production.

Now, our former allies, whom we have been aiding in economic recovery-and I want to refer now particularly to Belgium, France, Greece, and the United Kingdom-in 1949 and 1950 took 30.5 percent of our total dairy exports. Normally they do not import from us at all. In 1939, they took only 4 percent of our dairy exports. They would not have taken those exports during this latter period had they not been able to use the money we gave them, with which to buy.

96315-52-pt. 1--18

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