MANAWATU EVENING STANDARD AND POHANGINA GAZETTE. Circulation, 2,500 Copies Daily TUESDAY, JULY 22, 1902. FOOD SUPPLIES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XL, Issue 7353, 22 July 1902, Page 2

MANAWATU EVENING STANDARD AND POHANGINA GAZETTE. Circulation, 2,500 Copies Daily TUESDAY, JULY 22, 1902. FOOD SUPPLIES.

In connection with the important question of food supplies, an articlo is contributed by Mr J. P. Whelpley to the I North American Heyiew, his object being to show that the United States, by the control of tho food supplies of Britain, can impose peace upon the world, altogether.irrespective of armies and fleets. From statistics of the latest date, tho writer is enabled to in"forni us that, out of the food supplies which tho mother country draws from abroad, the United States furnish 4? per cent, of tho wheat, 88 per cent or tho flour, 71 per cent, of the live cattle, 89 per cent of the bacon and hams, 96 per cent, of the salt and 70 per cent, of the fresh beef. The gross importations of food into Great Britain total 180,000,000 Jsterling per annum, and the great bulk of these, as will be seen, are derived from the United States. At the same time, as Mr Whelpley is candid enough to remind us, " Australia^ with her vast grazing grounds, could have produced a large proportion of the meat needed by the United Kingdom ; and Canada, with her great grain areas could have undoubtedly produced the bulk of the breadstuffia had England had the forethought a quarter of a century ago to give deyelopment and growth to her dependencies by -buying what they had to sell before turning elsewhere." There is no doubt considerable force in what tho writer says about tho panic anfl bread riots which would, or might, arise in Great Britain if America were to interdict the exportation of food stuffs thither; but he has entirely overlooked another aspect of the question by forgetting ,to ask himself what would be the condition of the American graziers and grain growers' when precluded from exporting the enormous surplus 6t tliej't produce p What would wheat and flour, gheep, cattle, and beef and.pork be worth in any American market a week after recourse had been had to such an extreme proceeding as that of closing up all th« outlets for them which now ejist ? : .