FURTHER FOOD CRISES

Evening Star, Issue 25995, 9 January 1947, Page 5

FURTHER FOOD CRISES

DEVELOPMENT IN MID 1947

ARBITRARY DESTRUCTION OF UNRRA WORK MUST SOMEHOW COIjJINUE (Rec. 12.30 p.m.) IiONDON, Jan. 8. The arbitrary political destruction of Unrra at December 31 last in the middle of winter with no effective replacement will mean a food and economic crisis in the second quarter of 1947, in most countries- dependent :-on Unrra, said Commander R. G. A. Jackson, , deputy director-general, reviewing the winding-up of the organisation. He said that the three months’ gap between the termination of Unrra food sup- • plies, and the gathering of inadequate indigenous harvests would not necessarily mean starvation, but it would mean widespread malnutrition. He believed the Unrra operation had been an extraordinarily good one; it failed in only one respect—it had not won the support of the peoples of the contributing countries or “ got over ” to them the urgency of the situation. Jt was given a bad name in 1944-45, whieh it never lived down. The end of the Unrra was a very good lesson that international organisations had no hope of surviving without public support, particularly that of the United States. Commander Jackson warned if something were not done at once there was a chance that countries which had received Unrra aid would slip back to where they were 18 months ago. . “ We see no signs of the United Nations or national bodies succeeding . Unrra coming to life and carrying on Unrra’s work,” he said. The contributing countries had sunk more than £700,000,000 in Unrra, but they had a good chance of losing their captital investment for the,sake of another £IOO,000.000 or £200,000,000. 78 PER CENT. OF PROGRAMME ACHIEVED. Sir Humphrey Gale, personal repreaenfative of the director-general of Unrra in London, disclosed that by v January 1 Unrra had shipped more than 19,000,000 tons of relief supplies valued .at £570,000,000, and bad achieved .78 per cento of the administration’s original programme. Supplies valued at £165,000.000 remained

to be shipped early this year. The United Nations had met 99.8 per cent, of their contributions to Unrra. Sir Humphrey said food shipments would cease before agricultural rehabilitation of the occupied _ countries was completed. ft was vitally important that the remaining 22 per cent, of Unrra’s programme should be completed if Unrra was to succeed in its rehabilitation function. The food situation in manv countries remained most alarming. The situation was very bad in Austria, Albania, China. Greeee, Italy, and Yugoslavia. Unrra was to hand over responsibility for 730,000 displaced persons it was at present assisting to the International Refugees’ Organisation by June,. 1947. However there was no

sign yet of this. organisation, the headquarters of which is to he established in Paris. It was imperative that it should begin work soon in order to avoid any hiatus. Sir Humphrey said that 40 per cent, of the remaining supplies valued at £80,000,000 would he delivered to China up till August. The programme for China so far was only half completed. Poor internal communications were hampering distribution.