The Grey River Argus MONDAY, September 6, 1948 PREMIUM ON FOOD

Grey River Argus, 6 September 1948, Page 4

The Grey River Argus MONDAY, September 6, 1948 PREMIUM ON FOOD

FOLLOWING on the heels of a contract to secure nearly the whole of our surplus dairy produce for a period, longer-than any ever previously arranged, Britain has now made a similar contract with Australia. She is able also to rely on Canada for much of her surplus foodstuffs, not to mention the Argentine, and Denmark, or such other countries with which, as in the case of Russia, she plans to exchange manufactures for food. Sir Stafford Cripps has now arranged with the British industrial capitalists to speed up manufacturing, so as to ensure there will be means to finance imports, food as well as raw materials, and he has hinted that if the increase of export desired is not otherwise secured, working hours may be increased. The significance of these steps is to be fully realised only in the light of the world food situation. Sir John Boyd Orr, late U.N.O. Food Organisation Director, says that with a third of national incomes still being spent on armaments, there may now remain a food problem until the end of the century. This summer in Europe has seen crops decline markedly in comparison even with last year, whereas population in Western Europe alone has grown since the war by thirteen millions. America has a good harvest and the prices are going sky high. Our farmers in fact can look forward to demand for foodstuffs exceedingsupply for another decade, so that Britain is calculating shrewdly by her contracts up to six or seven years. Things which have made for a lasting food shortage are the industrialisation of more countries, the pressure of' urban populations,- and the growing evil of land erosion.

AVhile considerate of the soil, Britain cannot yet be sure that her reliance so greatly for food on other countries, and for payment on ever increasing industrialisation, Avill maintain her relative economic status. The countries which copy her industrialism are unlikely either to remain as much her markets as before, or offer her>food as plentifully or cheaply as before. However, her factory production in some cases has gone up with team work, higher pay, and cost cutting as much as 20, 30 and even 50 per cent. If her currency were devalued she would become a keener competitor, and already is selling a whole lot of motor cars in the United States. Meantime she uses moTe dollars than she receives, and depends on Marshall' Aid.For an illustration of the food crisis, however, parcels for Britain bear no comparison to the awful state of' Europe. Were there now twice as many on the land in Britain, or as many as there were even in the middle of her*industrial boom, she would be better off. But on the Continent, apart from poorer present crops, there are majiy millions homeless and hungry who /nice would have been self-supporting and exporting food. Among these are eleven million displaced Germans, shunted out of the Soviet bloc, except for four and a-half millions displaced in the Russian zone. In the Western occupied part of Germany there arc six and a-half million displaced Germans. In Poland and Czechoslovakia the satellite Governments have ' kept seven hundred thousand skilled German workers —and sent their wives and families away. Other displaced persons include between 600,000 and 700,000 political refugees, Jews forming the largest proportion, with also Poles, White Russians, Balts, Hungarians, and Yugoslavs. T. 8., crime and vagrancy are rampant as the families mostly live in a single room, with nearly all of the remainder livingeight or more families to a single barrack room. It is stated that last year fifteen thousand children crossed’ the frontier lookingfor their parents who had been herded out of East Europe, whilst the living “standard” in East | Germany is incredibly low among the preponderance of aged or infirm, and women and children. It is a reasonable conjecture that war is not the most imminent danger, even with rearmament. The Berlin situation may not meet an early solution, for the

Soviet lias the whip hand, and it is a matter of time perhaps until the Western Powers may conclude they cannot continue to supply the city, blockade or not. In even highly industrialised countries no need now is greater than that of food. Where there is plenty it is costly; elsewhere the black market is the real criterion of things. In such latter areas, iwhere there is the cry for American aid, the actual food producers hoard to operate on the black market. The over-all world situation is thus at its worst, because food is the first essential, and yet energy is either being directed anywhere except to the land, or< dissipated in want.