The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER THURSDAY, AUGUST 12, 1920. THE WHEAT SHORTAGE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXXI, Issue 20, 12 August 1920, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER THURSDAY, AUGUST 12, 1920. THE WHEAT SHORTAGE.

There are two pivotal reasons for the world shortage of \vhea>t which by all indications is imminent—loss is being grown :i',i more is being consumed. Owing to 11 creased wages ai'd their approx'mation to European standards the Ear Eastern peop*es bare begun to eat more bread ar| d l° ss rico. This is most : ot'cpable in Japan. These new consumers are a formidable drain On declining suppl cs, Europe, says one London pajKT, is go : ng to get much l\«s wheat from the United States and the Arg nti e. In the pre. -e t. cereal >ear Europe imported 1H miil'on tons of grain. Exactly half of that came from the United States. In this cereal year the United States will have only five million tons for export. The Argentine Congress, in consequence of a sharp rise in breed prices, Ins stopped the export of her wheat pioducts in the interests of the Ar gentir.e people. The agricultural writer of another paper calculates that Europe is likely to bo short, of bread by the colossal deficit of 1000 million loaves in the coming year. That thousand million deficit, he says, is the smallest estimate of the moHfc expert statif-tieia-s. Whilst consumption in the East, for the reasons already stated, has morp than trebled throughout

Europe there is shortage of produc-

tion. An amazing situation has come about in Belgium and is not unlike that in Britain. The Government offered the farmers the mean price of 00 shillings a hundred kilos—which would not he more than £4 a quarter for the whole of their wheat. This spring some farmers, seeing a loss when mont other crops yielded a profit, actually ploughed up their wheat and put in linseed, wh'ch is dear; and Belgium of all countries will have' to import wheat at treble the price offered to they farmers. Siberia, which could feed the world, does not count; and the way in which Bolshevism has affected the Near East, no-

tably in Rumania, is that it refuses to grow one single bushel for the rest of the world. The farmer is go.

ing to eat bread, made of wheat flour, and all he grows he is going to eat. Money does' not appeal to him. He wants food. War has made him set a treble value on food, and bred i» hfm an utter contempt for the paper that people call money. Every country i s importing and no one exporting. Even Russia is importing. France has been ; Japan imports.- Australia has hitherto possessed large accumulated stores, due to want of transport, but they are as good as gone; and other surplus scarcely exists. Europe is left in the lurch. Britain, needs at presenl consumption s'x m'llion tons of imported wheat an ( ] »t is thought she will be lu-ky if she gets one and a half millions. The danger, it is sail by S r r Herbert Brown, ore of tin leading millers of Britain, will beconu apparent in December or Januar next.. "At present we are as a natioi running straight on the rocks so fa as our present and future wheat sup plies are concerned, and, as Tstnte< in February last. I believe the cost t the nation of the 41b loaf will h nearer 2s than 9d within the nex 18 months unless our home pre

duction can be increase J. to more than double the pre-war acreage." This view is supported by Sir George Paish, who points out that already the price of wheat in the United States, stands H 3.38 dollars per bushel, equal at tbe current rate of Britis'. exchange to 17s 6d per bushel la price which/ indicates th e expected ' -hortagp of supplies for some time to ome. Allowing for freights, American, incontrolled 'Wlieat in, England WQUldj )e nearly, £1 per bushel. In the coin- 1 ng crop season .Europe. excluding

Russia and .Rumania, will ; need to import 2CO million bushels from ..outside countries ,to reach its pre-war level of. consurnpt : o,o, ~..fvhile , ; -the supplies available' are likely to be about, 'SOO j million, bushels,. In Britain 'the people are eating four times more than they grow a,nd production is,falling, the area under wheat being 100,000 acres less than at the last harvest, "ihe suffering which this sit. nation will entail if nothing i a done to rectify it" writes Sir George Paish, "ean'ot fail to create revolutionary conditions and unrest in every Continental country. Tf the people are to be preserved from starvation and civil i at'o-i from destruction rot a moment must he lost in making th. 9 per* pie aware 'of: this great danger and in assisting them to co-operate to overcome it.'' ■