A HUNGRY WORLD.

Matamata Record, Volume III, Issue 119, 13 February 1919, Page 1

A HUNGRY WORLD.

War* Between Food and Famine. Sevoral things put tho world on short rations: withdrawal of labor from tho farms; interruption of transport by sea and land; over-running of Belgium, Northern Franco, Ron mania, Western Russia and Asia Minor ; general demoralization incident to war in Russia, the Balkans and elsewhere. In none oi those respects can normal conditions be restored for a long time. Next to tho United States, Russia was the groat producer of surplus foodstuffs. She signed her peaco treaties over a year ago, and in regard to food is worse olf * than over. We may hope "there will not be another Russian case ; but to restore normal conditions of food production must take - much time. Just to re-construct normal reserves of foodstuffs would take tho surplus from a bumper world crop. Peace .nay leave some industries in a doubtful state of mind as to tho future : but there is no doubt the world will need all the foodstuffs it can { posssibly produce this year, and | probably for some years to come. t Tho U.S.A. Department of Agri- { culture is now planning a drive i for a victory harvest in the United i States this year. For four years i they had the stimulation of very i high prices. In 1918 the chief ] grains brought double the price . of 1914 ; but the out turn in 1914 i was smaller than that of 1918 by | only ten per cent. Production j in i 915 was greater than in 1918, j which simply shows that, taking ] woather conditions of one year ] with another, an important in- | crease in the production of food- , stuffs must come very slowly. In view of the world situation , there is little enough danger of , over-doing it. In September the Belgian Ro- , lief commission calculated that, 1 until aftor the harvest of 1919, it i must feed ten million people in Belgium and North - eastorn , France. They will require, in twelve months, forty-two million bushels of breadstuff’s and over three hundrod million pounds of meat; the childron alone must haveseventy-three million pounds of condensed milk and cocoa, and forty million pounds of sugar. A month later Washington published a report by tho French food controller. Tho wheat crop there avoragod about three hundred and twenty-five million bushels beforo the war. It was a hundred and eighty million bushels this year. The potato crop dropped from twolvo million tons to seven and a-half millions. Besides her own army and civil population thore are probably four million foreigners in France — mainly, of course, British and American troops. To feed thoso foroign troops tho Interallied War council call upon America I for seventeen and a-half million 1 tons of foodstuffs in tho next twelve months—a fifty per cent, increaso over last year’s great requisition. By all accounts millions of Russians will starvo this winter unless they are fed from abroad, which simply means America and tho Dominions. Other millions in south-eastern Europe and Asia Minor are at the edgo of famine. For a year, at best, there will be a world war to tho knife between food and famine. The reserves that win tho war —if it is won—must bo drawn very largely from America and tho Dominions. Europe must reap next year’s harvest, say in September, 1919, beforo there can bo any material change in tho situation. ) Signing an armistice relieves no responsibility in that respect, but rather increases liabilities, for it brings hungering populations r within roach of all. With tho Baltic open Petrograd is practically next door. The food war goos right on.