OCR Text |
Show ARRANGE GRADES OF COTTON Agricultural Department Builds Up Elaborate Systems of Checks, Balances and Precautions. One of the most elaborate systems of checks, balances and precautions that surrounds any of the administrative administra-tive activities of the government has been built up in connection with the machinery in the department of agriculture agri-culture for settling disputes as to grades of cotton under the cotton-futures law. The department has had to guard carefully against the possibility of the good faith of its agents being questioned, and to accomplish this has worked out a plan that should satisfy even the most chronically suspicious. After the receipt of small quantities of the fiber, agreed on by both parties, from each bale of cotton in dispute, the samples are carefully locked up in a vault until a clerk to the board of examiners opens the packages and arranges ar-ranges them in readiness for examination. examina-tion. Each sample is marked only by a number so that nothing can be known of the parties to the dispute. An examination sheet is prepared for each dispute, also bearing the number and a statement of the contentions of the parties to the dispute, but without with-out names. Finally the board of examiners, composed com-posed of expert cotton classers, is divided di-vided into squads of three men each, the personnel of each squad being changed daily so that no three men constitute the same squad for two consecutive con-secutive days. The examinations are made by a squad, its decision being the basis for the findings by the secretary of agriculture. The findings have the effect of prima facie evidence in all United States courts. In the six-and-a-half months following follow-ing the promulgation of the various standards, December 15, 1914, the disputes dis-putes referred to the secretary of agriculture totaled 418 and involved 39,050 bales of cotton. The fees assessed as-sessed for determination of the disputes dis-putes amounted to $13,378.45. The department de-partment does not profit by these fees, however, for they must be turned into the treasury is miscellaneous receipts. |