WHEAT FOR SPAIN.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 21, 23 December 1938, Page 7

WHEAT FOR SPAIN.

UNITED STATES SURPLUS. AID FOR SUFFERERS. WASHINGTON, Dec. 21. The State Department has announced that it plans to distribute surplus United States wheat in order to prevent starvation and the spread of disease among Spain’s civilian population, and has also invited other nations to give food or money. The Government is purchasing 3,000,000 bushels of wheat in the next six months and turning it over to the Red Cross for storage and transportation, after which the wheat will be milled into 600,000 barrels of flour and distributed impartially among Spanish non-combatants. This announcement elicited the observation from British and American circles that the nutritional problem in Spain has been giving concern, not only to humanitarian bodies in the British Empire and the United States, but also to departmental experts who have been connected with the League of Nations’ work. A report is in circulation that Australian circles advocate that the Commonwealth should make a contribution of dried milk for under-nourished women and children of both factions in Spain. It was stressed that the need for essential vitamins is becoming paramount among civilians, and such a contribution would be of firstrate importance for the relief of suffering and perhaps would be more important than wheat. POWERS IN CONFERENCE. (British Official Wireless.) LONDON, Dec. 21. The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr R. A. Butler) said in the House of Commons to-day that Britain was in consultation with America and France regarding the dispatch of supplies of food to the civil population in Spain.