VITAL POLITICAL ISSUE.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18619, 15 July 1930, Page 9

VITAL POLITICAL ISSUE.

Price Of American Wheat. REPUBLICAN POLICY ATTACKED. United Press Association—By Electric Tel egraph—Copyright (Received July 14, 8.30 p.m.) WASHINGTON, July 13. The wheat question is fast assuming the proportions of an important political problem, with a stalwart Republican province like Kansas in uproar over the Farm Board’s failure to act in the face of prices which give the farmer less than the cost of the production, and with the exertion of heavy pressure from within the Republican Party to get the Administration to spend a large amount of money to “peg” the wheat price, to enable farmers to obtain a profit on the present harvest. Senator Capper will ask President Hoover to have the Grain Stabilisation Corporation purchase 100,000,000 bushels immediately, and withhold it from the market. Meanwhile, the Congressional elections are approaching, and the Democrats are pointing to the alleged ineffectiveness of President Hoover’s farm relief policies, and are asserting that “ten years’ trial of Republican prosperity is enough.” AUSTRALIA’S BIG CARRY OVER. MILLION TONS ON HAND. United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyriglit (Received July 14, 10.25 p.m.) SYDNEY, July 14. It is officially stated that Australia has a million tons of 1929-30 wheat still on hand. When the next new crop is harvested, the problem of disposal will become very serious, as the United States and the Argentine each have a superabundance of wheat, for which they are finding difficulty in securing profitable markets. It is quite possible that New South Wales and Victoria will form a joint pool. Negotiations in that direction are proceeding. PROBLEM OF WHEAT PRICES. AN INTERNATIONAL DRAMA. The rise and fall of prices in the wheat market are said to be recorded from day to day in ordinary times in a drab and unemotional way. But now that the wheat problem has become an international drama, with a bearing on many issues outside the market, we are told, it is a big news story of the day. Therefore, it was inevitable, declares the Winnipeg “Manitoba Free Press,” that when the news writers took up the plight of Canadian wheat owners, they should dramatise it as a stupendous battle between elemental forces.

Continent is arrayed against continent, says this daily, European buyers against Canadian and American wheat-holders, with Argentina cast as the villain or hero of the piece, who intervenes unexpectedly and decisively. This stirring situation is brought about, it is said, by what some Canadian editors call “the endurance test” between wheat producers in Canada and wheat importers in Great Britain and Europe. The test, it seems, is still undecided. Meanwhile, the desire to discredit the Canadian Wheat Pool’s method of doing business, says “The Manitoba Free Press,” is general v/ith traders in grain on both sides of the Atlantic, and it continues:

“Some of the difficulties attending the marketing of Canadian grain are are due to an ambition on the part of these traders in Great Britain and on the Continent to give the Canadian Wheat Pool and the United States Farm Board a black eye, in the hope that it may discourage the controlled selling of wheat. We do not see that anything is to be gained by ignoring this undeniable fact. “The pool and those back of it must take cognisance of this mental attitude as a factor in the business of selling, for which provision must be made. In particular, everything in the way of claims that the power of the pool can go beyond skilful and orderly marketing, by which the real value of the wheat in the world market can be obtained, is to be deprecated.

“The controversy about the efficiency of the pool method of handling grain, against the efficiency of the older system, which has been going on for some years, will, it is evident, be continued with renewed vigour and acrimony on both sides of the Atlantic as a result of the present wheat situation; and the issue as between them will be settled in the long run by the test of results

“Both selling systems are being subjected this year to a gruelling test; and about the most that can be said, as yet, is that there is nothing in the results to date that justifies large claims of superiority by either party to the controversy.”

When signs point to victory by the Canadian Wheat Pool, observes the Ottawa. “Evening Citizen,” there is much admiring comment about the strength of this Canadian co-operative organisation. But when reports make it appear that the Wheat Pool may lose, critics are to be heard in many places, declaring that the Western farmers have done damage to Canada. This Ottawa daily adds:— “Whether they win or lose, the Western farmers are entitled to the credit of having tried to do something for themselves. The policy of tariff protection does nothing for them.”