SEEN and HEARD around the NATIONAL CAPITAL By Carter Field \ Washington.—Brazil’s cotton acre age this year will exceed by 3Tt per eent that of Inst year. Her spec tacular increase of cotton produc tion will continue, despite confi dence at the Department of Com merce and the White House thnt last year’s crop failure “down un der" proves Brazil is not a menace to the South on cotton production. Expert cotton men Just back front Brazil Insist that last year’s rains in that country, which result ed In only a l,400.00tl-acre crop being harvested, were Just ns ab normal for Brazil as the drouth in this country. Conditions last year in Brazil were more abnormal, If anything, they say, because the conditions In what President Roose velt calls the “buffalo grass" coun try are still a menace through dust storms, whereas there is nothing comparable to that In Brazil All of which Is terribly Important In view of the present threshing • bout In administration and farm circles over a substitute for the AAA program. There Is no doubt In the minds of experts who have studied the situation cold-bloodedly that the AAA system of holding up the price of cotton by curtailing American production was simply bolding an umbrella ever Brazil while she developed into a great cotton producing country. Brazil can produce very good cot ton and sell it for « cents a pound, with an excellent return to the fanners and every one handling It. Bot her Increase in production might have been very slow had it not been for the stimulus—amount ing to a bonus and prizes—extend ed by the United States not only forcing i»i» the price, but removing a huge fraction of the export crop. Secretary of Commerce Roper and other administration officials pooh poohed successfully this idea of a Brazilian menace until the Saturday Evening Post sent a cot ton exjiert to Brazil last year. Ills articles occasioned some alarm, but Just as they were beginning to stir up some of the cotton people came the news that there had been a crop failure in Brazil. Tills “fail ure" was occasioned by the rains. Brazilians Make Money But the experts Just back, In talking with this writer, say that every one In Brazil who had any cotton to sell at all made money, and tha\ there is no sign whatever that any farmer who has tried cot ton Intends to give It up. On the contrary, the Brazilians are so gen erally extending their cotton acre age that the estimate of Incrense over last year’s Is now 35 per cent. One of tlie most serious effects on New England and Southern tex tile industries Is the tendency of American mill owners to establish plants In Bras’l, especially for their export trade. Johnson and John son Is one outfit that has done so. The growth of the Southern tex tile Industry has plnyed havoc with new England mills for years, large ly because labor was a little cheap er In t|ie South. Now along comes the threat of mills In Brn7.il to menace both New England and the South, with labor cheaper than either can obtain, and with what seems to be an assured supply of cotton at very low prices. So far no one Inside the admin istration has seemed to realize what this Brazilian menace means. Officials Ignored for several years reports of American consuls tell ing of the spread of the cotton In dustry in Brazil. Last year offi cials also Ignored reports from consuls In England that mills there were changing their looms, with u view to using Brazilian instead of American cotton. So there Is no indication that any attention will be paid the present problem In working out the substi tute for AAA. New Farm Program No doubt seems to exist tlmt President Itoosevelt will get square ly back to the soli conservation subterfuge for paying the farmers of the country the rough equivalent of what they were getting under the now outlawed AAA farm benefit plan. Nor that he will back the levying of excise taxes, which will be very similar to those just ruled out. In fact, there seems little doubt that the new furiu program will go through whooping. There Is a great deal of doubt as to its constitutionality. Most law yers here believe It Is Just as far In excess of the real powers of the federal government, as granted to the central government by the states through the Constitution, as the AAA plan, with one exception. That Is with respect to the taxes. If congress levies the new taxes as straight-out excise levies, no one doubts they will stand. Everybody will know that the object Is to raise enough money to pay the farmers the equivalent of the old farm benefits, but the law Impos ing the taxes will not say so. Nor will it grant anyone discretion to change them. There la no qneanon of delegating power, as congress did to the Triple A In that act. But when It comes to paying a farmer so much a year to let such and such a proportion of his acres lie fallow, or grow up In pasture, on the theory that this Is preserv ing soil fertility, when as a matter of fact everybody*. Including the justices of the Supreme court, will know that the real objective Is to curtail a very definite percentage of crop production, that Is. some thing else again. In the opinion of many lawyers, that goes a long way out on the limb of the general wel fare clause of the Constitution—so far that the limb may break. Just Another Phase ltoosevelt's Idea of removing all the "buffalo gras*” country from cultivation 1* another phase of the problem. This Is the territory from the panhandle of Texas np to Mon tana, Including the western por tions of the Dakotas, Nebraska. Kansas and Oklahoma. It Is land which most agricultural experts agree should never have been plowed. Its cultivation, plus the drouth, produced tlse dust storms. Yet with modern machinery, cheap lund, and hnge farms It lends Itself to cheap mass production of crops. But this part of the program Is not the politically Important part. It would not put money In the hands of farmers 1n other sections, nor In the populous parts of the states Involved. Small checks to many farmers, rather thnn large checks to a few farmers, Is the Im portant thing politically. Then there is another question. It is highly improbable that the new plan can be passed on by the Supreme court before the election day. Nor is there any certainty that it could be gotten before I lie Supreme court at all. In the AAA case, the conrt Indicated that no taxpayer could bring the suit un-j less he could demonstrate that he was being badly hurt by the tax. This time, owing to the fact that the tuxes will tie of the struight out excise variety, with no author ity delegated to change them and with no tie-up between the amount of the tax and the object desired (crop reduction In the AAA plan; crop reduction via soil conservation In the new plan) lawyers here do not believe it would he ns simple for some badly hurt Industry to get its case before the courts. , Nnturnlly, such an organization ns the Liberty league might be tre mendously Interested, not to men tion the Republican pnrty. The lat ter, however, would be deterred be cause It would not want to throw a boomerang. All of which leaves doubt cloud ing the whole picture. Causes Irritation There Is considerable irritation at the White House over the wuy senators and representatives ure pawing over the proposed neutral ity luw. “Storm cellar buys" Is the popular phrase around the ex ecutive office^ und in the State de partment for the school following Senutor Herald P. Nye, which would remove all discretion w hatever from the President the moment war broke out anywhere In the world, and clamp airtight embargoes on a Mode and Persian list of commod ities which might not be shipped. There Is almost ns much resent ment against the Borah school, which holds that the "freedom of the sens," for which doctrine our country fought one well-remem bered and one mostly forgotten war, must never be surrendered. There is no proposal to surren der the freedom of the seas, State department officials Insist. The rule, they say, would merely be suspend ed in time of war. It Is on all fours, they point out, with the Inallenuble right of a pedestrian to cross a pub lic highway. That right Is not sur rendered when the pedestrian waits for a speeding automobile to go by. The pedestrian retains his rights, and also his life. It is against the strait-jacket ad vocates, however, thnt the White House is most bitter. It is not much worried by Senator Borah’s ar. guments. Neutrality Law In fact, it Is tills very sentiment which handicaps President ltoose velt and Secretary of State Hull In getting the neutrality law framed as they would like It—investing most of the power and discretion In the President. There Is strong support out In the country, as man ifested not only by letters to Cap itol Hill, but communications to the White House, In favor of shutting off exports of every sort, which would be useful in prosecuting war, to all belligerents the moment war starts. The argument appears again and again in letters that every ounce of discretion written Into the hill contributes Just that much to the nation that thinks It suffers from the exercise of that discretion regarding the United States as an enemy. Meanwhile the actions of Sena tors Nye and Clark In attempting to throw mud on the memory of Woodrow Wilson Is little short of flabbergasting to their colleagues. The objects of each are obvious. Ben nett Clark’s animus against the war President goes back to the Baltimore convention, when al though his father, Champ Clark, had won most of the Presidential primaries and had the most dele gates, Wilson, with the assistance of William Jennings Bryan, was nominated. Copyrlsht.—WNU Service. Industrial Panorama in the Saar. i Pr»par<*