DELUGE OF WHEAT

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 81, 3 October 1938, Page 8

DELUGE OF WHEAT

AMERICAN PROBLEM

NO HELP FROM CANADA

(From "The Post's" Representative.") VANCOUVER, September 14. The United States, alarmed at the decline in the price of grain, asked Canada's help, or co-operation, in marketing a large exportable surplus from its .current bumper harvest. Canada refused. The American request, presented in person by the Secretary of Agriculture (Mr. Wallace), who made a special trip to Canada for the purpose, was that the two countries should market their 550,000,000 bushel surplus by means of a pool and quota system, to obtain their proportionate share of the world market on a prearranged basis. Canada's reply was that it was committed to a policy of "free and open market" that would not permit quota or pooling operations. Mr. Wallace was disappointed at the rebuff, which was unexpected. He had confidently forecast that an agreement of some sort would be reached, believing that the interests of the two countries were so inter-related that neither could afford to engage in a cut-throat competition. Canada and the United, States, together, have available for export more than half the total world wheat import demand. Each has adopted a policy of export subsidies, on which each stands to lose heavily, as the current Canadian price of wheat is less than half last year's September price, and the price guaranteed by the Government to the farmer this year is 40 per cent, above preivailing prices. "Qnly war would save the farmers and the Government, but war is the last thing we should like to see," ruefully observed the Dominion Minister of Agriculture. Interpreted as a warning to Canada, Mr. Wallace subsequently stated that the United States was not prepared to bear on its shoulders alone the task of preventing North American wheat \ surpluses from disrupting the world market. "This is a problem no single nation can solve, or come close to solving," he added. He gave an assurance, however, that there had been no diplomatic pressure on Canada. From such observations the inference is obvious that the United States may "dump",its surplus on the world market, without regard for Canadian policy.