HOOVER PLAN REACTIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20962, 27 August 1931, Page 10

HOOVER PLAN REACTIONS.

-"The Administration—disappointed and alarmed at the fate which threatens to overtake the Hoover Plan in Europe—is now confronted with a domestic, political, and economic crisis of the first importance, arising out of the fall in the farm price of wheat in Kansas and all over the South-West to the ruinous figure of 25 cents a bushel," the Washington correspondent of the Times wrote last month. "Immediately 'after Juno 20, when tho Hoover plan was announced, every effort was made—with the encouragement of the President —to persuade the Farm Board to announce that in order to assist economic rcpovery in the United States it would hold all its surplus wheat for one year. The Farm Board, however, vigorously denounced this policy, asserted its independence of the Administration, and refused to do more than limit its sales of wheat in the domestic market to 60,000,000 bushels for the coming year." To this the Kansas City Times retorted:— "If the United States can relievo Germany of £50,000,000 in debts for a year, tho Government can afford to pay £12.000.000 to hold back its wheat." The Times correspondent adds:—"The agitation which is now going on in Kansas, once considered an impregnable Republican stronghold, alarms tho Administration, because il is thought a sign of the way in which the Hoover plan is -going to be turned to account by those who want domestic relief on lines which the Administration is not willing to follow. The political prestige accruing to Mr. Hoover and the Republican Party as a result of the original proposal has fallen heavily as a result of the events in Europe since June 20, and of the evident improbability of any early economic recovery resulting from the Hoover plan. The Progressives and the moro radical wing of the Democrats have already made clear that they expect the plan for European relief to be accompanied by some plan for relief at home, such as a big extension of assistance to the unemployed. Now the Republican wheat farmers aro using the same argument.V