WHEAT SURPLUSES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 246, 14 September 1940, Page 7

WHEAT SURPLUSES

PROBLEM OF DISPOSAL

DISCUSSIONS PLANNED

(United Press Association —Copyright.)

(British Official Wireless.)

(Rec. 9 a.m.) RUGBY, Sept. 13. The disposal of the surplus of the great wheat harvest in Cauada constitutes a problem similar to that confronting Australia, which has large stocks from last year, also the United States ami Argentina.

The problem to-day, says tho Times, is intensified by the war blockade, but, as the world knows only too well from experience, after the great harvest of 1923 price fluctuations caused by unregulated or irregular marketing of the great temporary surpluses can have catastrophic effects, even in peace time.-

It is not a question affecting the .wheat farmer alone. One of tho major preoccupations of the recent PanAmcrican Conference at Panama was hoy- to deal with the surpluses of various products piling up in South American countries. A committee has been appointed to arrange for their orderly marketing and for necessary finance.

An influential British mission is about to proceed to Argentina, and probably later to other South American countries, to promote British trade in South America. It must certainly deal with this problem, in which Britain is hardly less interested than the United States.

On the face of it tho problem can be solved only by international co-opera-tion on a great scale, says the Times. If resolutely tackled now by the Government, in consultation with primary producing countries themselves, they ought to be able to work out a comprehensive plan for dealing with such surpluses not only during the war but as permanent world economic machinery, thus preventing any repetition of the disastrous fluctuations in prices which were so largely responsible for the economic collapse of 1931.

CREDITS FOR BRITAIN.

TALKS WITH ARGENTINE,

BUENOS AIRES, Sept. 12. It is officially stated that the Argentine and British Governments are studying an agreement by which the Argentine will cede to Britain credits of between £30,000,000 and £40,000,000 for the purchase of meats and grains. British-owned railroads and packing-houses in the Argentine would be security.