FOOD FOR INDIA

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 85, 7 October 1943, Page 3

FOOD FOR INDIA

PLEA IN AUSTRALIA

SHORTAGE OF SHIPPING

O.C. SYDNEY, September 29. The Australian Government is being urged by public-minded and humanitarian citizens to expend every effort to dispatch large quantities of food as quickly as possible for the relief of the starving masses in Bengal. The Chief- Justice of Australia, Sir John Latham, urged the Australian Red Cross Society to send supplies. Addressing a meeting-of the central council of the society in Melbourne, he said that India, so far as she regarded Australia at all, regarded her with suspicion and dislike. Australia never regarded India at all. The sending of food now, he suggested, would help to bring about good relations between the two countries. . The president of the Australian Constitutional Association, Dr. Frank Louat, and Mr. W. C. Wentworth, defeated National Government candidate at the Federal elections, issued a joint statement appealing to the Government to act immediately. "It is our duty to do everything in our power to help India," read the statement "It is only thus that we can prove the sincerity of our professions of co-opera-tion in the post-war world. Admittedly, the amount of food we can send is governed by the amount of available, shipping, but the amount of shipping provided may depend upon the volume of food which we have ready for export. "The Federal Government should make a' public announcement that it will see that the maximum amount of food is available for shipment to India, even though it might mean additional rationing in Australia. No secret Government commitment can take the place of such a public pronouncement, which is necessary in order ■to associate the whole body of Australian citizens with the Government's offer." The statement added that even if shipping was not available to export the food now, it would be available as soon as the war ended to carry food to the devastated areas and sustain them until their next crops could be brought in. It was certain that any food reserves Australia could build up would be needed at the end of the war and that none of them would be wasted. Such reserves could be built up both by increasing food production and by reducing food consumption at home at least some way towards the level which Britain had endured for three years. This meant a considerable sacrifice. Whether Australians were willing to undertake it a would provide a test of whether there was any meaning behind their expressed intention to co-operate after the war in the world plan of which so much had been said. The Minister for Agriculture (Mr. W. J. Scully) said in Canberra that the Australian Government was prepared to do all it possibly could to assist famine-stricken Bengal. "We can supply all the wheat they need, but- at the moment there is not sufficient shipping space available,". Mr. Scully said. "All shipping is controlled by the United Kingdom. There is no indication yet as to what tonnage would be available."