ALL-OUT DRIVE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 88, 15 April 1942, Page 5

ALL-OUT DRIVE

CANADA PREPARES

INDUSTRY AND AGRICULTURE

OTTAWA, April 9.

In industry and on land Canada is making an all-out effort for war. The Bureau of Statistics index of the physical volume of business for the first two months of 1942 stood at 137.5, representing a gain of 7.2 per cent over the same months a year ago. Nearly 503,000 tons of steel ingots were turned out during January and February, an advance of 25 per cent over the high level of 1941. The corresponding gain in the pig iron output was no less than 41 per cent. In January and February exports were over 69 per cent more than the figure for the same months of 1941. The corresponding percentage gain for imports was 39 per cent. While war production steadily increases, additional regulations conserve essential supplies. By instructions from the oil controller 165 owners of commercial industrial heating and steam plants in British Columbia to-day were ordered to switch from oil to coal. The instruction, it is estimated, will save 35,000,000 gallons of oil a year for the navy, for locomotives operating through the Rockies, and for essential war industries on the Pacific Coast. To conserve essential materials, 300 additional commodities have been placed under export control regulations. To ensure maintenance of essential communications telephone services are placed under stringent priority rating. From the r armer, the 1942 programme demands more pigs, milk, beef, wool, eggs, fats and oils. A three-point appeal to the prairie provinces by the Department of Agriculture calls for:— 1. Production of wheat to be limited to what can be sold in domestic and export markets during the crop year 1942-43. 2. Unlimited production of coarse grains for live stock feeding to produce, animal products fats needed in the domestic market and bacon, dairy products and eggs for Britain. 3. Greatly increased production of flax seed to meet the vegetable oil needs of Canada and the United States. Deliveries of wheat from Western Canada have been authorised at 280,000,000 bushels, compared with 230,000,000 bushels authorised from all Canada last year. The expected carry-over of 400,000,000 bushels at July 31, it is felt, will constitute an adequate war reserve.