WORLD FOOD CRISIS

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 April 1946, Page 5

WORLD FOOD CRISIS

“POSITION IS WORSE THAN PAINTED” PRESIDENT TRUMAN’S VIEWS WASHINGTON, April 18. President Truman told a visiting group of editors that the world food crisis was worse than it had been painted. He said he had cabled to the chairman of the Famine Emergency Committee (Mr. Herbert Hoover) suggesting that he return immediately from Cairo to bring forcibly and dramatically to public attention the facts about conditions in Europe, and demonstrate the necessity for greater assistance from America.

Mr. Truman suggested that Mr. Hoover would visit India, China, and Japan later. After a meeting of the South-East Asia food conference in Singapore, a communique was issued saying that a statement showing the seriousness of the food situation in South-east Asia had been sent to the British Government for consideration by the Combined Food Board in Washington. Concern Expressed. The communique expressed concern that the public in South-east Asia were under the impression that the reported improvement in the general food situation in other parts of the world had been achieved at the expense of the territories of South-east Asia. The conference resolved to make the utmost endeavour to prevent the imposition of cuts and to press for the re-allocation of stocks of cereals for South-east Asia.

It was decided to hold a technical nutrition conference at Singapore next month to correlate food data and ensure as far as possible that diets were balanced and arrangements made to meet the needs of specially vulnerable groups, such as children, nursing mothers, and heavy industry workers. ' The conference emphasised that the key to a solution of the food problem in the Indies was the immediate release of existing rice stocks in Siam.

The Government of India has suggested to the British Government that India should approach the Russian Government for food supplies. This was disclosed in the Central Assembly by a Food Ministry spokesman, who added that the sending of an urgent mission to Moscow would depend on the nature of the British reply. Shipments to Japan. The Far Eastern Commission has ordered an investigation of United States food shipments. The inquiry was prompted by the announcement of the United States Secretary of Agriculture (Mr. Clinton Anderson) that more than 500,000 tons of food would be sent to Japan during the firt six months of 1946. Sir Carl Berendsen, New Zealand Minister to Washington, expressed concern about the possibility that preference might be shown Japan or any other Axis Power during the food crisis. He recalled that members of the commission recently visited Japan and asserted that nobody could suggest that the Japanese were then short of food. Indeed, they were fat. “We learned from the occupation authorities that the Japanese were eating not only more food than during the war, but actually more food than before the war,” he said. “The Japanese themselves, in substantial part, are the cause of the famine menacing the world. If—and I repeat ‘if’—the aggressor is to be given any preference over the innocent victim, I wish to say immediately that I take no part in such a policy. I think the commission as a whole should take no part.” The commission referred the question to its economic and financial committee. British Offer of Cereals.

The Combined Food Board in Washington has announced a conditional British offer for a tripartite agreement under which Britain would contribute as much as 200,000 tons of additional cereals to the general pool, 60,000 tons of which would go to UNRRA; but the entire offer was subject to Britain receiving certain assurances from Canada and the United States about the future flow of grain. The British member of the board (Mr. Maurice Hutton) said Britain’s proposal was now being considered, and an early reply was expected.