NEW MARKETING POLICY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 42, 20 February 1939, Page 7

NEW MARKETING POLICY

NO MORE PEGGED PRICES CANADIAN WHEAT GROWERS ASSISTANCE ON ACREAGE BASIS Received Feb. 19, 5.5 p.m. OTTAWA, Feb. 17. In the House of Commons the Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Gardiner, announced an entirely new wheat marketing policy. The custom of “pegging” prices had been abolished and assistance would be granted to the farmers instead through the acreage bonus. Condemning the fixed price, the Minister stated that a grower with a small crop got little and with no crop nothing at all, yet aid for this year's crop had cost the Canadian public 48,000,000 dollars. The new plan would encourage homebuilding and the maintenance of rather than increased production. The Government's intention, said Mr. Gardiner, was to introduce legislation calling for the co-operative marketing of all agricultural products. Auxiliary legislation would afford facilities to meet emergencies through world market developments. Grain leaders are cautious regarding the new plan and the Alberta Wheat Pool has issued the following statement: “Regardless of the new legislation, unless world prices improve, the Canadian West faces a disastrous year. No farmers anywhere can produce prfltably at the present world prices. A “pegged” price was a substantial prop, the absence of which will be severely felt.”

Mr. Frank Eliason, president of the United Farmers of Canada, asserted that the precent prices are of no benefit to farmers as a bonus was promptly absorbed by their creditors.

DEPOSIT IN ROME

MONEY FROM FRANCO “FOR SERVICES RENDERED” (Independent Cable Service.) Received Feb. 19, 5.5 p.m. LONDON, Feb .17. It is reliably stated that General Franco on February 15 deposited the equivalent of 175,000,000 lire (about £2,000,000) in Rome as an ;n--stalment “for services rendered.” The money is reported to have been obtained through a powerful Anglo-French syndicate.

APPALLING CONDITIONS

SPANISH REFUGEES IN FRANCE PLIGHT OF HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS Received Feb. 71, 6.30 p.m. PARIS, Feb. 18. Cabinet is to devote a day to the discussion of M. Besson’s report on the appalling problem of 400,000 Spanish refugees. M. Besson, after a tour of the frontier reported that 165,000 soldiers are living in makeshift shelters and some in holes dug in the damp sand. Thousands are subsisting on only bread and water. Owing to lack of food and shelter 12i per cent, of the refugees are ill. Discipline is presenting difficulties and several murders have occurred in the camps, while there are continual quarrels between rival factions. The refugees include 20,000 orphans. A message from Perpignan states that 11 soldiers belonging to General Franco’s forces were blown up by an explosion when attempting to make coffee with a percolator in an abandoned building. The percolator had been deliberately packed with explosives. Sixty were killed and 200 wounded in a bombing raid on Madrid. The bombs were scattered, one falling at the crowded entrance to an underground station, where many were killed.