Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1939. CANADA AND WAR SUPPLIES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 32, 17 November 1939, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1939. CANADA AND WAR SUPPLIES.

The fact that Canada’s wheat yield for this year is estimated to be considerably above the average for the five years 1932 to 1937 is most gratifying, for it indicates the important part the Dominion will play in helping to solve the problem of sufficient supplies of food for Britain. The increase is the more acceptable because grain usually obtained from the Baltic States and Russia must be seriously curtailed, if not stopped altogether in', the case of the northern countries. In the supplying of foodstuffs and in many other ways Canada is better sited and equipped than any other Dominion to help. As an instance of power in food production, there ar.e at present nearly 10,000,000 acres of land, capable of use for this purpose, beyond the area in cultivation in 1918, when the stimulus of war demand caused an expansion of fifty-four per cent firom' the 1914 level. Canada ban export more than eighty per cent of her normal production of wheat so that the estimated total of 478,000,000 bushels means that over 400,000,000 will be available, compared with 240,000,000 annually in the lustrum mentioned 1 above* One great advantage of a supoly from Canada is that it requires a shorter ocean carriage than shipments from any gather parts of the Empire. But it is not only in foodstuffs that Canada can be an economic source of the first importance. She produces eighty-seven per cent of the world’s output of nickel, eleven per cent, of its copper and lead, and nine per cent, of zinc. -.ln addition, Canada possesses plant which can be rapidly adapted to the production of munitions.