The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, it is so ordered.

(The information is as follows:)

Purchase and disposal of butter under the dairy price support program, January 1949 through December 1951

Approximately 10 million pounds of butter were purchased prior to July 27 at 59 cents per pound for grade A, and 57 cents per pound for grade B.

No butter remaining in inventory. Difference between purchase and disposals due to contract tolerance which permitted deliveries slightly greater or less than contracted quantities.

Purchase and disposal of Cheddar cheese under the dairy price support program, January 1949 through December 1951

Mr. ANDRESEN. Prior to the enactment of section 104, the Government had purchased 242 million pounds of butter in this country under the support program. Most of that was sold back into the domestic trade. A very substantial portion, probably around 30 million pounds, I will have the accurate figures for you, went to the school lunch program. In the fall of 1948, a substantial amount of butter was distributed for relief purposes in Illinois and some of the other States, in the month of October and the first part of November. That was in 1948. But there was a balance of 37 million pounds of butter which was sent to foreign countries as a gift.

I will just enumerate the countries that received it, because there were undoubtedly many asking for it. One-half of the butter and a very substantial portion of cheese was given to Israel. There were 19 million pounds of butter that went there. Yugoslavia got 11 million pounds of that butter. The balance of that 37 million was distributed in smaller quantities up to a million or two million pounds to other countries.

Of the surplus cheese that we had, the British bought in 1951 and 1952 cheddar cheese for around 15 cents a pound. I am not certain whether that 15 cents a pound came out of the ECA money or not. I have not been able to find out. Our Government purchased that cheese at around 33 cents a pound, and sold it to the British at 15 cents a pound when the market in this country was around 45 cents a pound at retailers. I wanted them to sell that cheese back into the domestic market, but I could not get Mr. Brannan to agree to that proposition.

I think there are certain places we can use that surplus butter and cheese in this country, and also to take care of our needs among the people who are on relief and school lunches, that is, the American people who lack dollars to buy the necessities of life. I have heard about that and so have you, people living on pensions and old age security who do not receive enough to maintain a decent standard of living.

I would like to recommend to the committee a reading of certain documents. You probably heard about the Bell report. That is a very interesting document. President Truman appointed the Bell Committee. It is so astounding and amazing to me that I cannot believe a group of Americans would come out with a program which would recommend unlimited imports into the United States of all types of commodities. If anyone is thrown out of work in this country that they shall be put under high social-security payments; that the Government is to move people from one area to another to find work for them if they are displaced because of imports in industry or in agriculture. That is a very voluminous document that I hope the American people have a chance to read.

I also want to comment for a moment on Mr. Ford's much publicized statement of free trade for this country, at least for automobiles. He has recommended the elimination of the 10 percent duties, as I understand it, on imports of automobiles, and generally freer trade. I heard him over the TV the other night, and he did not want absolutely the removal of all tariffs. So apparently he has modified his position.

The Government has spent around $35 billion or $40 billion to rehabilitate the free countries of the world. Probably we have helped

some of the other countries to become rehabilitated, too. I think that the people of those European countries where we have spent so much of our money can also be taught the know-how to make Ford automobiles. They only receive wages of about 25 percent of what the automobile workers receive in this country. What could be better for a manufacturing institution than to build factories over in European countries with modern American machinery and the know-how that we claim to possess, and to have automobiles made over there to ship into the United States duty free so that our people can get those automobiles and possibly the manufacturers will make more money in getting that cheap labor.

I just do not believe in that kind of philosophy, whether it be for automobile workers or whether it be for some other branch of our economy. I honestly believe, and during my 26 years in Congress I have felt that it is the duty of Congress to protect agriculture, and industry and labor in this country to maintain the American standard of living. Because as sure as we are here today, if we permit unlimited imports of all these commodities to come into the United States with American capital, we will find our standard of living going down so that the people who are living today will never imagine what will take place should this occur. I feel it is our duty in Congress, and in your committee, to do its constitutional part to protect the American citizens in whatever group or economy they may find themselves.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I have just one more point before I leave, with your permission. One of the purposes of the Marshall plan was to restore historic world trade between the countries of the free world. So our money was poured out to restore that historic trade between those countries. Now because of the higher price level and because of the encouragement of some who claim to represent the present administration, they say that we ought to have more stuff to come into the United States. When I say the present administration, let me point this out, that Mr. Linder came before our committee claiming to represent the State Department on its foreign-trade policy. He virtually urged free trade, and he thought we ought to do it for the benefit of the overall economy of the United States, and if it hurt somebody in particular and helped more people, we should let competitive commodities come in that might injure some little manufacturer or might injure the dairy industry or any other part of our agriculture. But the main purpose of the Marshall plan was to rehabilitate these countries and restore historic trade between those countries.

If we are to permit, because of the higher price level in the United States, these commodities to come in here in unlimited quantity, then we have destroyed our objective, and we will make these countries of the world dependent upon the United States and the taxpayers of the United States, and we will destroy our standard of living at the same time. You will have to hunt around for new means for heavy taxes to pay the bill for the relief of the American citizen. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Andresen, we certainly thank you for your statement. I consider that you are one of the best informed men in Congress on the subject of agriculture.

Mr. ANDRESEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

32604-53--50

The CHAIRMAN. We appreciate the fact that you have come here and given us the benefit of your many years of experience on the great Committee on Agriculture and in Congress. You may now submit to questions.

Mr. JENKINS. I want to say one word. As Mr. Andresen knows, I have followed him pretty consistently across the years, and I feel better about it today, because from his display of the knowledge of the facts and figures, I join with Mr. Reed in saying that he is the recognized leader in Congress on this subject, and I am very glad and proud to join him in agreement on these important questions. I have no questions to ask.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Curtis, of Nebraska.

Mr. CURTIS of Nebraska. Mr. Andresen, in any agricultural program that might be followed, whether it be a development of a twoprice system, or whether it is support prices maintained by Government purchases, or whether it is production control or any other farm program that might be undertaken, do you think that the control of imports is essential to make such an agricultural program work?

Mr. ANDRESEN. I am so convinced of that that I will say this to you: If unlimited imports are permitted to come in, it will destroy the support program. It was never intended that this program would support world prices.

The best illustration we have of that is what happened to the potato program. Our Government spent around $450 million to support the price of potatoes. We destroyed potatoes in the United States without even digging them. The Canadians increased their acreage up there and came in and took over the market at a few cents under the support price. They took over the entire eastern market.

Mr. CURTIS of Nebraska. I will state my question another way. Do you think that a farm program is likely to be devised that would make it unnecessary to give primary and direct attention to the problem of controlling the imports?

Mr. ANDRESEN. I have given a lot of study to that. I was here when we passed the original McNary-Houghton bill, which some of your colleagues will remember. We devised in that bill a two-price system, primarily for wheat and cotton. I am hopeful that such a program can be devised. But to make it work, you have got to have either effective tariffs which I do not believe you can have now with the countries devaluating their currencies or you must have import quotas or something to limit imports. Otherwise we are doing the very thing that will destroy any program.

Let me point out one program. A few days ago we had the Minister of Agriculture of a European country-I will not mention whichbefore our committee. This country exports cheese and butter. They, of course, want to send it all to the United States. They sent quite a bit of cheese into the country now. I said, "Mr. Minister, can we ship our surplus butter and cheese into your country?" He said, "No: you can't do that. We have restrictions against shipping in things of which we have sufficient quantities and surplus in our country."

That is true with every country that wants to ship their dairy products into the United States.

Mr. CURTIS of Nebraska. Now let me ask you this. If we are going to have an American price for agricultural products, that means nec

essarily a price above the world level. To permit the flow of quantities of agricultural products into the American market, not only places upon us the burden of supporting the world price, but what does it do with what might be called the normal channels of trade, between the other countries?

Mr. ANDRESEN. As I tried to point out a few moments ago, we have failed in our effort to restore normal trade between the different countries where they had historic trade. Most of the countries in Europe traded among themselves. There are trade barriers and restrictions between all those countries. I know they are trying to remove some of those, but that was the historic pattern. Where they, and we, at least I thought, were trying to rehabilitate the European countries under the Marshall plan so trade could be restored, because of the higher price level in this country, even though people might go hungry in some of the other countries, they will ship their butter and cheese into the United States, because of the higher price that the imports will get and it is trying the importers in this country who get the greatest benefit from it.

Mr. CURTIS of Nebraska. When we consider the fact that there are perhaps millions of people in the world who are hungry, are those people more likely to be able to buy food at the world price, or if they have to pay a price that is supported by the United States Government intended for the support of our own farmers?

Mr. ANDRESEN. I am afraid if unlimited imports come in here, it will just mean that we will get all those commodities, particularly dairy products, that the people should be consuming more of in their own countries, and in their historic trade pattern, and we will have to turn around and start another ECA program or lend-lease program, or UNRRA program to help feed the hungry people of the world.

Mr. CURTIS of Nebraska. I have been thinking about these problems of trade in relation to agriculture and food. I do not challenge anybody's motives in the least, but I am not so sure whether all the proposals are humanitarian. I really doubt if they are in the interest of the downtrodden and hungry people of these countries.

Mr. ANDRESEN. We ought to work toward that program. I might say that there are those in the administration who feel that we should rehabilitate that part of their economy to restore the historic trade pattern. But I am hopeful that we can work out some kind of program for agriculture that may be a two-price system.

Mr. CURTIS of Nebraska. Have you given any attention to the problem of bartering or exchanging surplus food items that we have for strategic and critical materials that we do not have or produce at all which can be stockpiled?

Mr. ANDRESEN. I am sure there would be great opportunity to do that under bilateral agreements. Nearly every country in Europe has bilateral agreements with every other country in Europe and Asia. Mr. CURTIS of Nebraska. As a matter of fact, quite a number of important strategic and critical materials that we do not have at all are produced in so-called under-privileged sections of the world where malnutrition is a factor, is that not right?

Mr. ANDRESEN. That is true.

Mr. CURTIS of Nebraska. It seems to me that that is an avenue that has been neglected a long time, that is, of getting our excess food into the hands of these people suffering from malnutrition and low stand