Dear Sir

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 9, Issue 76, 20 May 1946, Page 4

Dear Sir

Letters to the Editor must be clearly written on one side of the paper only and where a nom-dc-plume is used the name of the writer must be included for reference purposes. The Editor reserves the right to amend or withhold any letter or letters.

UNRRA

Sir,—Most observers appear to agree generally that food conditions in Great Britain are worse than on the Continent. There is no doubt that this is a deliberate policy. The “British” Government says it hasn’t got dollars to buy American food, but the housewives are asking where it gets the money to pay for American films and American petrol. America is using the food situation to force her own terms on the British Empire. Her terms are embodied in the Bretton Woods agreement. The British Labour Government signed no doubt under pressure, but in so doing signed its own death warrant. The New Zealand Government cannot be starved into submission, but it will probably sign too, unless the people protest loudly enough. This control of food by a few men becomes more terrible when one considers that the whole position must have been known long before the end of the war; and the position becomes more sinster when it is realised that Western Australian wheat growers were paid more than one million pounds not to grow wheat. The Australian Government has stated it is short of ■ shipping yet America lias more Liberty Ships than she knows what to do with. There is further evidence of the Danish fishermen casting their hauls of fish back into the sea for want of a market, their cold stores being full to the brim. And we being pledged to dollar exchange, all official consignments of our primary products are being consigned through Unrra and by-passing the requirements of our own flesh and blood. Further why these recent consignments of Bovril and tinned Herring and Tomato Sauce into this country? Are the people of New Zealand short of food?

(Ottawa, April 15, 1946). Amazement at the amount of food being landed from Europe at Boston, New ork, and other Atlantic ports which, he has just visited was expressed today by Mr A. N. McLean, member of the Canadian Senate. “There is something wrong,” he said. “For example ships leaving American ports with fish products meet ships from Europe in mid-Atlantic carrying similar products.” Mr McLean added that fish products were being exported from Norway, Iceland, Spain, Portugal and the United Kingdom in order to get United States dollars. We therefore have the position that something artificial stands between the actual and potential food in America and the hungry people of Britain. That artificial something has been described in the press as “A Wall of Dollars.” The Melbourne Argus gave the following report from London, 8/2/46: A New York Times correspondent in Washington reports that the British and U.S. officials said the important factor in the drastic reduction of British food rations was Britain’s acute dollar shortage . . . What a racket! This should be particularly noted—the important factor is dollars, not food!” This should be a warning not to sign the Bretton Woods pact. Yours etc., W. BRADSHAW.