FEEDING 50,000,000

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 8, 26 January 1942, Page 4

FEEDING 50,000,000

BRITAIN'S RESPONSIBILITIES IN

MIDDLE EAST

Britain has made herself' responsible for the welfare of 50,000,000 people in the Middle East, supplying them from various sources with industrial raw materials, coal and oil for transport and public utilities, fertilisers for crops and foodstuffs—loo,ooo tons of cereals fire now on their way there.

The work is, carried out. by the Middle East Supply Centre, which, with headquarters at Cairo, serves an area of 2,500,000 square miles, twenty-five times the size of Britain herself. The Centre co-ordin-ates the supply of all goods and makes the best possible use of shipping facilits.es. It works in close cooperation with the United Kingdom Commercial Corporation, which has branches in ten countries —Turkey, Persia, Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and the Sudan, as well as in Spain, Portugal and Iceland. The Corporation has a representative on the Middle East Supply Centre, which in turn maintains close touch with Mr Oliver Lyttelton, Minister of State in the Middle East, and with the Intendant-General of the British armies in that region.

Agents of the U.K.G.G. in Egypt, Iraq, Syria* Palestine and South Africa have recently met in Cairo, under the chairmanship of Lord Carlisle, to discuss the important questions of transport and co-ordination.