THE WHEAT INDUSTRY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21361, 15 June 1931, Page 8

THE WHEAT INDUSTRY

CANADIAN EXPORTS ; e CUT IN FREIGHT RATES. WASHINGTON, June 12. The belief that farmers may ask Congress for an export debenture or some other weapon in foreign markets, should the proposed Canadian cut in freight rates on wheat be reflected in the export quotations, has arisen in political and agricultural circles. Senator Borah (Idaho) looks upon the Bennett Government’s plan to absorb the 5 cents per bushel transportation charges to the seaboard as an export isubsidy as comparable in some respects to debenture stock. A debenture certificate on wheat would be worth x2l cents per bushel, or one-half the amount of the tariff. A co-operative association or grain dealer desiring to ship wheat abroad would receive world price plus 21 cents for each bushel exported. Opponents say that the plan would lead to dumping of United States surpluses and invoke serious foreign retaliation. Some visualise in the export debenture an incentive for world-wide price slashing, and a subsequent i situation worse, or at least no better, than the one for which a remedy is sought. That view it taken notably by the Farm Board, which also opposes further emergency stabilisation, which already has burdened it with almost the entire United States carry-over.