WHEAT FOR RUSSIA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 February 1939, Page 3

WHEAT FOR RUSSIA

BIG PURCHASE IN AUSTRALIA.

SUPPLIES FOR EASTERN ARMY?

~ith a huge and totally unexpected order for wheat, to be shipped to Vladivostok, Russian buyers caused a sharp advance in the price of Australian wheat the other day. Private advice received by cablegram -in Christchurch indicated that 10 shiploads — representing at least 60,000 tons —had been bought by the Russian agents. The deal is of interest to the Dominion, because in recent years when the New Zealand crop has not reached the country’s requirements importations have been made here from Australia. Russia itself is a huge wheat-pro-ducing country, and speculation is rife as to the motive for the orders placed on the Australian market, thousands of miles distant. The explanation most generally accepted, it is stated, is tnat supplies are needed for the Russian Eastern Army.

Last year Russia made an equally dramatic entry into the Australian market, then buying some 20,000 tons —a third of this year’s nui'chase. It was rumqured then that the purchase was for army supplies for Russia’s forces in the East, which at that time were very near the Japanese army in Manchukuo.

The size of the Russian order, placed in one day on a market that was not expecting it, can be indicated by the statement that it is approximately one-third of New Zealand’s total crop in some years. It is approximately 2,250,000 bushels—or the total crop, perhaps, from an 80,000 acre block growing 30 bushels to the acre.