"RELIER" THAT INCREASES EXPORTS

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 63, 15 March 1934, Page 10

"RELIER" THAT INCREASES EXPORTS

Whether United' States ' sales of wheat to Chinaj on-long term credit,; are or are |iot -a- breach of the London agreement, 'as isxlaimed in a Sydney cablegram,vit, seems that the gloomy market outlook painted by Sydney is only too real. ■. The wheat growers,1 like the. dairy farmers in New Zealand, call on the Government for relief, and the Commonwealth Government has enacted a scheme of relief for those wheat growers who had no taxable income last year—a "means test"' which is variously regarded as.faid for the really, deserving" a n d as "a subsidy for inefficiency." When a country adopts a policy of reduced production, or a policy of preventing increased production, one difficulty arising is how to find a form of relief - to-growers that will help the producer wilhout increasing production. There is quite a possibility that relief schemes for primary producers in various countries will result in a

general increase of supply to markets reported "saturated," or subject (now or in the near future) to quota. . Another fact is that the sharp edge of the new■ United States policy of opening markets to United Stales primary produce exports is only beginning to be ' felt. Along with the Sydney report of American wheat in China comes the comment ofi an Australian visitor that "the Americans, with the help of Government subsidies," have taken Australia's dairy "produce trade in the East.- And note well that the proposed Roosevelt substitute for the Republicans' "disguised" shipping subsidies will ,be "direct financial assistance," including "trade development, subsidies, which will finance shipping in co-ordination with' any trade treaties negotiated." This'means a combination of."treaties to admit United States,exports,- and ship subsidies to provide the shipping—the whole of' this "drive for ' exports" being backed probably by' flexible tariff powers and certainly by the devalued dollar. '~ .