BRITISH TRADE AND FOOD

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 92, 18 April 1940, Page 10

BRITISH TRADE AND FOOD

Returns for, March show that Britain's exports are steadily increasing and that supplies from abroad are also arriving satisfactorily in larger quantities. These are the sinews of modern war, and, if the process can be continued, it augurs well for the success of the Allies. If the British people, so dependent on supplies from abroad hitherto, can be provided with a sufficiency during wartime, and if British exports can be maintained and increased, furnishing the necessary foreign exchange for war needs, then two of the main problems of the war for Britain will be.solved. The essence is trade overseas. To make more shipping space available for imports from abroad nearly two million acres of grazing land have been ploughed up in Britain under the agricultural development scheme, and it is estimated that the year's harvest, thereby enhanced, will set free two million tons of shipping space. Thus the position in Britain, even though supplies from Denmark are cut off, is regarded confidently by the authorities. Mr. Lennox-Boyd, of the Food Ministry, goes so far as to announce that the present distribution of butter and bacoii can continue despite ihe loss of supplies from Denmark. In these two items New Zealand has an opportunity of increasing her share of the Empire's food contribution to the Motherland, if the conditions of farming here are favourable. In any event it is pleasing to learn, in the opinion of the authorities, that there is no cause for anxiety in Britain on the score of food.