UNITED STATES SURPLUS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 151, 23 December 1938, Page 9

UNITED STATES SURPLUS

TO PREVENT STARVATION

PROBLEM CAUSES CONCERN

(By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright.)

WASHINGTON, December 21.

The State Department has announced that it plans to distribute surplus United States wheat in order to prevent starvation and the spread of disease among Spain's civilian population, and has also invited other nations to give food or money.

The Government is to purchase 3,000,000 bushels of wheat in the- next six months and will turn it over to the Red Cross for storage and transportation, after which the wheat will be milled into 600,000 foarrels of flour and distributed impartially among Spanish non-combatants.

This "announcement elicited the observation in British and American circles that the nutritional problem in Spain has been giving' concern not only to humanitarian bodies in the British Empire and to the United States but also to departmental experts who have been connected with the work of the League of Nations.

A report is in circulation that Aus>tralian circles advocate that the Commonwealth should make a contribution of dried milk for under-nourished women and children of both factions in Spain. It was stressed that the need for essential vitamins is becoming paramount among civilians and suck a contribution would be of firstrate importance for the relief of suffering and perhaps would be more important than wheat.