FOOD CONTROL IN AMERICA.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1749, 21 August 1917, Page 4

FOOD CONTROL IN AMERICA.

■ The organisation for food control in the United States has, as its first object, the release of the greatest possible quantity of foodstuffs, principally cereals, for Britain, Branco, Italy, Belgium, and Portugal, and certain neutrals, for whom it is hoped to provide between 500,000,000 and 800,000,000 bushels of grain this year. Legislation has been expedited to give the administration power to increase the production, to regulate the domestic consumption, and to control exportation. These measures are designed to ensure an adequate food supply in the United States at State-controlled prices, and by the elimination of waste and the efforts of agriculturalists, to.increase the available surplus for America’s allies. Early ip June, preliminary legislation was enacted, authorising expenditure on seeds fur distribution at cost, on an educative campaign, on eradication of disease among live stock and plant life, and on a survey of the nation’s, resources. Congress" also gave the President drastic powers to prevent speculation in food cereals-by suspending and even closing exchanges which allowed gambling on “futures." At the head of this great war department is Mr Herbert C. Hoover, who accepted the position of food administrator on condition that he nor his assistants should not receive any pay for their services. An American mining engineer, Mr Hoover became wealthy by the development of mining enterprises in Australia, Burundi, Mexico, China, California, and Russia. When Germany refused to feed Belgium, he gave up all his interests and devoted himself to the control of the Relief Commission, and for two years “lie held dying Belgium in his arms.’’ As soon as war was declared the American people asked for him to regulate the food resources, but it was not until the President personally appealed to him that Air Hoover accepted this “thankless,' hopeless post,” as he had previously described it. It is interesting to note that he is only 43 years of age.