Down on the Farm

Mike Di Salle made his first move last week to control prices at the farm level. He put a ceiling on cotton (previously frozen at the gin level) at 45.76-c- a Ib. The ceiling, which was the highest price that cotton sold at between Dec. 17 and Jan. 25, was 125% of parity and 40% above pre-Korean market prices. Said Di Salle: "Most people will agree that this is a perfectly fair figure."

Cotton Congressmen disagreed. South Carolina's Senator Burnet R. Maybank cried that the order would "never work" and was the real start towards controlling other farm products, such as livestock, wheat and wool. He threatened to lead a move to knock the props out from under the whole price control act when it comes up before Congress for renewal in June.

Commodity traders did not like the ceiling, either. They had hoped cotton would be uncontrolled until it reached the mill. The cotton futures exchanges, which had closed when gin prices were frozen, were still closed at the beginning of this week. They were not sure whether they could trade under the ceiling regulation. In any case, so long as cotton is short and remains at the ceiling, there is little prospect of trading in futures.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.