FOOD IN BRITAIN

Greymouth Evening Star, 5 December 1946, Page 7

FOOD IN BRITAIN

EFFECT OF AGREEMENT IN GERMANY DOLLAR AREAS CURTAILED LONDON, December 3. The economic fusion of the British and American zones in Germany will mean that Britons in the next few months will be denied any improvement in the austerity diet on which they are at present living, say the political correspondents of the Press Association and Exchange Telegraph. Britain will probably have to bear well over half her £125,000,000 commitment next year before the European harvests begin to ease the food situation in Germany. In the meantime, most of the lood for Germany will have to be imported. The British Minister of Food (Mr. John Strachey), as a result, will have to curtail dollar purchases of tinned fruits, canned meat, and other trimmings which have helped to add variety to the British diet.

The correspondents add that the £80,000,000 which the British taxpayer has been paying annually to maintain the British zone will not continue in addition to the new commitment of £125,000,000 spread over three years. The joint zone will in future be responsible for providing foodstuffs and medical supplies which have represented about two-thirds of the annual British expenditure on their zone.. But the cost of maintaining the civil administration of the zone, about £27,000,000, will not be covered by the new agreement; so the total cost of Germany to the . British Treasury may be something like £206,000,000 spread over three years. Question of Sufficiency. Reuter’s Financial Editor, Sydney Gampbell, says the big economic question is whether the £250,000,000 will suffice to get Germany going or will merely dribble away. Undoubtedly the British contributin, particularly the dollar portion, is all, or more than, Britain can afford. Whether it will suffice remains to be seen. The clause saying that imports will be made as far as possible from sterling sources so as to economise on the dollar cost f to Britain is a weak safeguard to her scanty dollar supply since North America and other currency areas based on gold are at present the only sources of most of the goods and other things Germany needs. ®

This writer considers that by far the most important financial points in the agreement are the early establishment of an exchange value for the mark and financial reform, as they cut cleanly away from the Potsdam arrangement under which all Germany’s external and interzonal trade has to be transacted in dollars. Suspension of Dismantling? It is reliably reported that orders have been given for the suspension of all “reparations dismantling” of German equipment in ’the British zone, says the British United Press correspondent at British headquar-

ters in Germany. Official circles so far have not confirmed the reports. The Paris correspondent of the British United Press says official circles say that the . British-United States agreement will not affect France’s position. France would continue to administer the zone following, the economic and political lines established when the war ended. ' Reuter’s Berlin correspondent says Mr.. Wilhelm Pieck, President of the Russian-sponsored Socialist Unity Party, said the merger would have value only if it brought’ nearer unity of the whole of Germany. He hoped the merger would not be an obstacle to that end. He added that policy in the western zones differed so much from that in the eastern zone that it was difficult to see how unity could be achieved.