Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-03-22
CANADIAN FARMERS
FEAR COMPETITION
OF SOVIET WHEAT
Dominion Must Sell Huge
Grain Stocks Before New
World Crop.
OFFERINGS FROM RUSSIA
ARE CHEAPENING PRICES
u. S. Farm Board Also Faces Prob
lem of Marketing Sui
plus.
BY JOHN z. SINCLAIR.

NEW YORK, March 21.-Canada is
facing serious problem. She has for
sale about 200 900 900 bushels of wheat
as much as is held by the United States
Farm Board-and is selling this wheat
as fast as possible, but not fast enough
to be rid of 1t before the new world
crop arrives.
The Canadians feel that Russia
threatens them. Last week while was
in Toronto noticed that the bankers
and business men there were more in
terested in the Russian wheat export
business than in any other question.
They wanted to know If Russia can lay
down wheat in Europe at so, so or 10
cents bushel. Can the Soviet republic
| do this and develop her resources? II
SO, it means great difficulties are in
store for the Western Canadian wheat
! farmers.
The Canadian government knows this.
/ Her business men know it. And the
railroads know it. too. That's why
E. w. Beatty. chairman and president
Of the Canadian Pacific Railroad in
Toronto last week demanded that
! Canadian government supply the bIi-
| ness men and agriculturistS with more
real facts about Russia.
If Canada-and this applies to the
| United States alSo-iS ever to make in
| telligent plans to meet Russian compe-
| tition it will be necessary to know all of
the important facts concerning Russia's
wheat output, its cost, amount available
for export, at what price. etc.
Russia knows to the last economic
| detail what is going on in Canada. while
| Canada knows very little about what Is
going on in Russia says the Financial
Post of Toronto.
That same criticism applies very
largely to American business men and
! farmers, too. America knows too little
about Russia.
Soviet Experts.
Russia's foreign trade during the past
| Soviet fiscal year, which ended Septem-
4 Der 80. 1880, has entered the 81 ,00O,-
| 100000 class. For her imports were
| $534, 000, 600, an increase of 81 per cent
over the previous year, and her ex-
ports reached $501. 600 900, an increase
| of IA per cent over last year Thus
she bought abroad $33,000,000 more
| goods thans she sold.
The largest gains in Soviet imports
were in the field of industrial machin-
| cry and equipment, and raw materials
| for their manufacture.
Cotton imports into Russia regis
tered a decline. American cotton
| growers will want to know why. It
was due to the increased planting of
cotton in Russia. In chemicals, too,
Russia Is able to take care of herself,
Sugar and herring were among the large
1000 imports-sugar because Russia had
q snort domestic crop last year, and
herring because fish Is widely used as
substitute for higher priced meats in
the Soviet Republic.
Russian exports have taken an inter-
esting turn. Oil, timber and coal show
an increase, as was expected. But an
increase OF 100 per cent in the volume
OF canned goods exported, was not ex-
| pected. Nor was the gain of 200 per
! cent in the export of Chemicals. That's
a warning to German and American
chemical interests-that the Russian
| chemical industry can be counted a
serious factor in the world trade of the
! future.
ROOSevelt'S Message.
Gov. Roosevelt's special message to
the New York Legislature, demanding
the passage of better banking laws to
| protect savings deposits in non-saving
banks, has revived the possibility of
the passage of such laws at the pres
! ent session of the Legislature.
Savings deposits are not commercial
| deposits. Many of the larger CONNER
| cial bankers would like to see the saw
| ings' accounts eliminated entirely from
| commercial banking. One Of the larg-
| est Of New York commercial bankers
| told me this week that savings ac-
| counts and commercial accounts are
| so widely different in character and
| form that the only safe way is to have
| two kinds of bankS-cofnmercial banks,
| with no savings accounts in them, and
| savings banks, with no commercial &C
| coHnts in them.
Already the plight Of the 100000
Bank of United States depositors stands
as warning. New York legislators
are being pressed from all sides to work
! out legislation which will prevent, as
! far as it is humanity possible, a repeti~
! ticn of this tragedy, where the SUI
ferings were largely in the savings ac-
| counts.
The suggestion of Senator ]. Ham
| Lewis of Illinois that the United
| States suspend all war debt payments
due to her, except interest, and pro-
vide that these debts be transferred to
the generations that did not fight the
] war, and exempt from immediate pay
ment generations who did not fight and
suffer the war" is the most ingenious
one.
This new Senator from Illinois, who
served a previous term in the United
! State Senate during the Wilson adj
ministration, offers this suggs stion as
a remedy that will Immediately awaken
trade and revive prosperity in America"
There's no question that such a
move would have, temporarily at least,
favorable and a far-reaching effect
on trade and commerce throughout the
world.
Farmers and Financiers.
Is Sinclair Lewis, the Nobel Peace
Prize winner of 1880 in Literature, about
to write a novel dealing with American
| financiers and bankers? He may not,
| but In his first address given in the
| United States since his return from
Europe, he referred particularly to two
classes of our citizens. who would make
excellent material for the present-day,
wide-awake novelist farmers and
ananciers."
Here's the way he sizes It up:
And there is the plight of the pres
ent-day farmer of New England, who,
on his rock-strewn hillside, is trying
! to compete with the farmers Of the
prairiest and who still believes in rais-
ing vegetables to eat instead of selling
homegrown corn and then buying
canned corn for his table at several
times the price.
Then there are our great financiers
| and Observation-Disclosures like Charles
G.. Dawes and Owen D. Young; a1en
who sit with kings, who talk 20 cham
cellors OF tie exSl1equer, while the king