gram; also percentagewise, we would like to know the amount in the fiscal year 1950.

Secretary BRANNAN. That can be supplied and will be supplied, sir. Mr. JACKSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary.

(The information requested is as follows:)

The following table shows the price-support commodities, the quantities authorized to be shipped under ECA, and the total quantities actually exported to all countries. Since the timing of authorization and export is different, these figures correspond only roughly.

ECA authorizations for United States procurement, and total United States exports of price-support commodities1

1 The commodities shown are those for which price-support programs were in effect in 1948-49 and 1949–50. Comparison of ECA purchase authorizations with United States exports is not wholly valid for the following reasons: (1) Some authorizations are made far in advance of shipment, which results in increasing percentage figures shown; (2) in some instances exports may include shipments against authorizations made during a previous period.

Amounts of items in this group were not shown separately on the ECA authorization statement.
Principally cottonseed oil. Export data shown are for cottonseed oil only.

Source: ECA purchase authorizations were compiled from data prepared by ECA. Export data are from figures published by Bureau of the Census.

Mr. JUDD. Mr. Chairman.

Chairman KEE. Mr. Judd

Mr. JUDD. I would like to complete for the record some of the figures on the item we were discussing a while ago. It was stated that we are now exporting some 235,000,000 bushels under the wheat agreement, and in addition to that, 100,000,000 to 140,000,000 bushels are being exported by private trade outside the quotas-that makes 335,000,000. How much is our domestic consumption, on the average?

Secretary BRANNAN. Of wheat, around 700,000,000 to 750,000,000. Mr. JUDD. That makes 1,035,000,000 to 1,125,000,000, the total of our domestic consumption and exports.

Secretary BRANNAN. That is right.

Mr. JUDD. What is our total production, on the average?

Secretary BRANNAN. Our total production has run as high as about 1,400,000,000 bushels, in 1948. It has run from that down to 500,000,000 in poor years.

Mr. JUDD. It runs between 114 and 112 billion?

Secretary BRANNAN. Since the war we have not fallen below 1,000,000,000 bushels per year.

Mr. JUDD. It has fallen as low as 1,000,000,000?

Secretary BRANNAN. Prior to the war it was around 800,000,000 to 900,000,000.

Mr. JUDD. If it ran on the average of say 1.3 billion, on an individual year's production and with the total of our domestic consumption and exports roughly 1.1 billion or a little less, that would give us 200,000,000 bushels surplus. That is what you either have carry-over as the insurance against crop failure that you were talking about, or have to cut down the domestic production by that amount in order to get a balance?

Secretary BRANNAN. That is right. As you are aware, we have recommended to the American farmers some curtailment in the production of wheat this year.

Mr. JUDD. You do not see any substantial increase in our domestic consumption?

Secretary BRANNAN. We are working very hard all the time on increasing domestic consumption of all of these commodities. The elasticity and the potential of increase, of course, is greater in many commodities than it is in others. For example, meat, dairy products, poultry, eggs, and those things, apparently have considerable room for expansion. We are eating, for example, 17 less eggs per capita this year than we did 2 years ago. We are eating 5 pounds less meat. We are trying to regain that market. The American farmer is a competitor for the consumers' dollars just like television, radio, automobiles, and everything else, and we compete for that dollar as hard

as we can.

Mr. JUDD. But there is not much opportunity for expansion of wheat consumption in the ordinary forms like bread?

Secretary BRANNAN. Not too much, although you folks had a fellow on the Hill here the other day talking about 16-percent wheat, or increasing the wheat in a loaf of bread.

Wheat also is consumed domestically in the form of feed, you see. There is room for expansion there.

Mr. JUDD. Wheat so far has not proved as adaptable for nonedible uses as has corn, for example; they are making many more industrial products out of corn than they are out of wheat; are they not? Secretary BRANNAN. That is right.

Mr. JUDD. You are also pursuing every avenue of finding more nonedible uses for wheat for commercial, industrial or other purposes than human consumption?

Secretary BRANNAN. We are, and as you pointed out, for the other grains, too.

Mr. JUDD. Obviously we either have to cut down our production or increase our markets, and there are only two places to increase markets: at home and abroad. There is not too much prospect of a substantial increase at home, so the only place where there is substantial room for expansion, is abroad.

Secretary BRANNAN. I believe that could be so.

Mr. JUDD. We have to attack the problem of increasing our exports of wheat and many of these commodities, or else even place more drastic restrictions on the farmer, which the farmer is objecting to.

Secretary BRANNAN. I don't know the farmer is objecting to it but he certainly faces more drastic controls if we cannot hold the level of our market.

Mr. JUDD. I believe he is objecting to it.

Secretary BRANNAN. This is probably getting far afleld but whenever he has had an opportunity to vote on controls he has voted overwhelmingly in favor of them. The tobacco grower votes 99 percent in favor of the most drastic forms of controls on the books. The cotton producer voted in favor of controls this year.

Mrs. BOLTON. And then he comes in and gets 1,000,000 acres extra. Mr. JUDD. That is the byproduct, or end result. That is what you call the escape clause from controls.

Now may I ask how are the shares or the quotas determined as between participating countries? You determine first the total amount the importing countries are going to desire in a given year. Then you divide among the exporters how much each particular country is to have as its quota?

Secretary BRANNAN. The basis is the traditional pattern of export that country has enjoyed, with recognition of trends and developments in the field, plus the limitations on the country not to expand its production any more than it is now producing, and so forth. Mr. JUDD. On page 5, you say:

It requires that a country using export subsidies does not use them to push its export quantities beyond an equitable share of the world trade in the commodity involved.

You determine what is equitable in the negotiations between the various exporting countries?

Secretary BRANNAN. That is correct. That is provided for within the machinery and framework of the charter, itself.

Mr. JUDD. I am talking primarily here about the Wheat Agreement. We already have that. I would rather study the one that we have and its operation, as a means of giving us some insight into how a new proposal on somewhat the same general lines, but on a more universal scale, is likely to work.

You haven't had difficulty in determining these quotas; you haven't felt America had been outvoted, for example, or however you carry on your negotiations?

Secretary BRANNAN. No, sir; I think we have reached a very equitable and fair arrangement among the countries. I do not mean to say that it was done in an hour. As a matter of fact, the increase in the amount of wheat to be exported under the Wheat Agreement was increased by the admission of Germany to the Wheat Agreement recently. It took two meetings in London and one in Ottawa before we got the problem finally settled. However, we got it settled on an amiable and I think thoroughly equitable basis.

Mr. JUDD. You speak of the general escape clause which permits any country to suspend obligations undertaken under the charter, or it may withdraw tariff concessions if unusual and unforeseen develop

ments occur.

Have we ever used the escape clauses in our reciprocal trade agreements, to withdraw tariff concessions on agricultural products, do you know?

Secretary BRANNAN. I will have to ask.

Mr. ANDREWS. No.

Mr. JUDD. Why is that? Did we think it would not be good in connection with our overall foreign policy?

Secretary BRANNAN. No abnormal situation apparently arose, so

far.

Mr. JUDD. Have other countries, on agricultural products?
Secretary BRANNAN. I know of none.

Mr. JUDD. Some people have objected to the ITO Charter because they feel the obligations, moral or otherwise, are too great. They say it gives other people control over our economy. Others come before us complaining that they think it hasn't any teeth at all that amount to anything, that there are no compulsions in it.

One man representing the National Foreign Trade Council felt that we should not use this multilateral method of negotiation, but should use our historic method of bilateral negotiations which,. through the most-favored-nation clause, would have multilateral application, or implications.

He felt the exceptions in this charter were so numerous and widespread that they practically reduced it to ineffectiveness.

I would like to have your comment on whether the obligations are too great or the exceptions are too numerous?

Secretary BRANNAN. When we recall that this proposal as to the charter has come as a result of long discussions and negotiations, give and take by all of the countries who wanted to join it, it seems to me it probably represents about as much restriction as you can impose by this kind of a procedure on all of the countries of the world, and certainly does not propose any excessively drastic ones as far as I

can see.

This kind of agreement is only going to work, even in an international area and even after having been signed solemnly by the countries, if there is a real intention on the part of the countries to make it work.

Therefore, in my opinion, the charter provides the mechanism by which the countries can continue to come together and talk about

65515-50-22

the problems that are within the scope of the charter. To that extent it is an extremely valuable and important document. Whether or or not one phase or one chapter should be a little more strict or a little less strict is in my opinion of only minor importance, because it is the future meetings, the future discussions, which are going to make or break it.

Mr. JUDD. I have just this last question:

Would you care to express an opinion, as the Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture, as to whether the charter should be more strict and tighter, and have greater obligations on those who join than it now has?

Secretary BRANNAN. I would say it is in just about as good a form as we could ask it to be under all the circumstances.

Chairman KEE. Dr. Eaton.

Mr. EATON. Mr. Secretary, to sum up your testimony today, you believe that it will be to the advantage of American agriculture to assume the obligations of this charter?

Secretary BRANNAN. I do, Dr. Eaton. I think they will be special beneficiaries, in terms of what will happen if some such arrangement is not available, out of which they will suffer more than other phases of our economy. They did before. I think they are special beneficiaries.

Chairman KEE. Mrs. Bolton

Mrs. BOLTON. I wanted to know whether you, as Secretary of Agriculture, and a member of the Cabinet, feel when the President signs an agreement or agrees to an agreement which is supposed to come. back to the Congress for what is called ratification, how much of an obligation do you feel that to be?

Secretary BRANNAN. Mrs. Bolton, this is going back again to the question of the relative powers and reciprocal arrangements between the executive and the legislative branch of government, is it not?

Mrs. BOLTON. But it is very simple to answer "Yes" or "No." Do you feel there is a moral obligation, when an agreement is made, that it should impose itself upon the will of Congress? What is your concept of it?

Secretary BRANNAN. As I understand, it is subject to the approval of Congress, either by the House and Senate or by the Senate, according to the constitutional provisions.

Mrs. BOLTON. Now I am asking you this not as a Secretary but as a plain, simple American. Are we morally obligated?

Secretary BRANNAN. If you would like me to say that I think that the fact that the executive branch has executed a document, subject to approval of the Congress, means that the Congress should not give it full consideration, of course I do not say that, but I do say that the Congress must recognize and is recognizing that a great deal of conscientious and sincere effort from the viewpoint of the best interests of the people was put into the development of the charter and that that in and of itself is entitled to weight and consideration by the Congress as it examines the document.

Mrs. BOLTON. In your appearance before us, I hope you have felt that is exactly what this committee does.

Secretary BRANNAN. I certainly do.

Chairman KEE. Would you consider there was any more of a moral obligation on Congress to approve an agreement made under the pro