SHOULD HELP.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 202, 28 August 1933, Page 7

SHOULD HELP.

WHEAT AGREEMENT. British Press Generally Favourable. AID ECONOMIC RECOVERY. (British Official Wireless.) (Received 1:2.30 p.m.) RUGBY, August 27. The world wheat agreement generally its well received by the Press. Several newspapers describe it as an important instalment in the programme of economic recovery. "The Times" considers the agreement may help in the solution of other dilHjulties which appeared insuperable at the World Economic Conference. It adds: 'The benefits to be expected are contingent, not merely upon ratification by the jovernments, but also upon the effectiveness of the steps to bring about a rise in the- world price, and therefore upon the way which importing countries interpret in practice the general undertakings given in return for the very definite steps which the exporting countries have pledged themselves to take. ' "These undertakings, in spite of their vague and indefinite character, are to be welcomed as the first real indication 011 the part of countries, which, hitherto have pursued a policy of extreme agrarian protection, that they are prepared to consider some modification in the general interest, provided the interests of their own producers are properly safeguarded." The "Morning Post" thinks that the conference has done a useful piece of salvage work. The plan itself is not heroic, but compared with the result of some other conferences it is a real triumph. It may also have advantageous secondary effects if it encourages the farmers to substitute mixed farming for an excessive reliance 011 one product. The "News-Clironicle" says that the agreement represents essentially one more effort to raise prices by artificial scarcity—a thoroughly vicious principle. The only ultimate solution, this paper states, lies in the willingness of Euro-1 pean countries to abandon policies of economic nationalism which they have 1 been pursuing at the cost of dear bread 1 for their own people and ruin for the farmers overseas. The "Manchester Guardian" also dislikes the restriction principle, but adds: "One surveys without hope the alternative —the continuing glut, added to each year by highly protected countries exporting a relatively small surplus irrespective of cost, and holding to ransom those better fitted to export but dependent upon exporting at a profit. If the Wheat Conference has saved the world that madness, it has not laboured in vain. The "Daily Telegraph" hopes the agreement may lead to a further measure for organised production and marketing of products, which plays so great and vital a part in international economy.