U.S. Wheat Profits May Be Invested Overseas

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28888, 7 May 1959, Page 15

U.S. Wheat Profits May Be Invested Overseas

(Rec. 11 p.m.) NEW YORK, May 6. The current secret Washington meeting on President Eisenhower’s “Food for Peace” proposal was expected to consider granting tax concessions to private exporters who reinvested surplus wheat sale dividends m under-developed countries, according to observers in New York today.

The head of Australia’s Trade Department, Sir John Crawford, is the chief Australian delegate at the conference, at which France, Canada and Argentina are the invited guests of the United States.

The delegates will report to President Eisenhower today on the results of their talks, which began yesterday. Senator Hubert Humphrey (Minnesota, Democrat) told a group of newspaper farm editors yesterday that the United States and other free nations should quickly and sharply expand food shipments to under-developed nations.

Senator Humphrey assailed the Eisenhower Administration’s refusal to seek long-term authority for sales of farm surpluses in return for foreign currency. The United States should not allow criticism of its export programme by Canada and others to slow efforts to help under-developed countries, he said. Urgent Appraisal Observers interpreted the Senator’s remarks as pressing for an urgent appraisal of all proposals dealing with the disposal of farm surpluses, particularly wheat. These proposals include those recommended on April 1 by a State Department study group, which envisaged a programme broadly aimed at stimulating private United States investments abroad—a move that could cut down tax-financed economic aid. The study group’s recommendations called for a variety of incentives to private businessmen, including special tax concessions.

The chief tax concession would permit United States companies to defer payment of taxes on profits earned abroad until they actually were distributed in the United States. Its aim would be to encourage re-investment overseas, preferably in the under-develdped

countries which paid lor United States surpluses. No official communique on the “Food for Peace” conference is expected until the talks end today. Informed sources said the delegates yesterday were provided with proposals for disposing of surplus wheat These suggestions were drafted in a preliminary meeting of experts who met in Washington last week.

GIRL CHARGED WITH MURDER

(Rec. 7 p.m.) SYDNEY. May 6. A 20-year-old girl charged with murdering a taxi driver was alleged in the Central Court today to have shot him in the head with a sawn-off rifle. It was alleged she then changed into men’s clothing and attempted to drive the taxi away. The girl, Sandra Andrea Kane Willson, was charged with the murder of Rodney William Woodgate, a Bondi taxi driver.

Detectives charged her early this morning after a visit to a house in the Paddington area. Armed detectives surrounded the house following a telephone call to C. 1.8. detectives soon after midnight.

Woodgate, aged 23, was found shot through the head in his taxi on a Kurnell bush track last Wednesday. Willson was remanded to May 14.

Six Drowned.— Six members of a family—a mother, father, and four children—drowned today when their flat-bottom fishing boat overturned in a flooded gravel pit —Heyworth (Illinois), May 5.