WHEAT QUESTION

Southland Times, Issue 22106, 29 August 1933, Page 5

WHEAT QUESTION

THE NEW AGREEMENT

COMMENT BY ENGLISH PRESS

BENEFITS LIKELY

(British Official Wireless.)

Rugby, August 26. The wheat agreement generally has been well received by the Press. Several newspapers describe it as an important instalment to the programme for economic recovery. The Times considers the agreement may help the solution of other difficulties which appeared insuperable at the World Conference. It adds: “The benefits to be expected are contingent not merely upon ratification by the governments, but also upon the effectiveness of the steps to bring about a rise in the world price, and therefore upon the way the importing countries interpret in practice the general undertakings given in return for the very definite steps which the exporting countries pledged themselves to take. These undertakings, in spite of their vague and indefinite character, are to be welcomed as the first real indication on the part of countries which hitherto have pursued a policy of extreme agrarian protection that they are prepared to consider some modification in the general interest provided the interests of their own producers are properly safeguarded.” The Morning Post thinks the conference has done a useful piece of salvage work. The plan itself is not heroic, it says, but compared with the result of some other conferences, it is a real triumph. It may also have advantageous secondary effects if it encourages the farmers to substitute mixed farming for an excessive reliance on one product.

The News-Chronicle says the agreement represents essentially one more effort to raise prices by artificial scarcity—a thoroughly vicious principle. The only ultimate solution lies in the willingness of European countries to abandon the policies of economic nationalism which they have been pursuing at a cost of dear bread for their own people and ruin for farmers overseas.

The Manchester Guardian also dislikes the restriction principle, but adds that one surveys without hope the alternative—a continuing glut added to. each year by highly protected countries exporting a relatively small surplus, irrespective of the cost, and'holding to ransom those better fitted to export, but dependent ,upon exporting at a profit. If the Wheat Conference has saved the world that madness it has not laboured in vain.

The Daily Telegraph hopes the agreement may lead to a further measure for the organized production and marketing of a product which plays so great and vital a part in international economy.

Following the wheat agreement London options rose about 6d per quarter while Liverpool ones increased by from lid to a l|d per cental.