Evening star., 1942-12-07
j. ). Move Launched
To Remake Worlds
Industrial Economy
Vegetable Seed Sent
To Help RehobiIitote
Nations Short of Food
BY RLAIR ROLLES.

I1ClpNIb n. LCl1Illdli IldS ldkcll
over his job as director of foreign
relief and rehabilitation operations
at a time when plans are being dis
cussed here that point the way for
the United States to help remake
the worlds agricultural, industrial
and commercial economy, after the
initial and paramount task of over
seas relief Is under way.
A few steps toward changing the
worlds agriculture already have
been taken, and Mr.. Lehman prob
ably will be in charge of carrying
them forward. In China DR.. Walter
c. Lowdermilk, an American farm
expert, is conferring with the gov
ernment of Chang Kai-shek on how
to reshape Chinese agriculture when
the war is over so that there will be
a better distribution Of food and in
come for all Chinese people. The
United States also has sent agri-
cultural technicians to the Latin
American countries.
India already is feeling Americas
interest in the future. A few weeks
ago plane carrying cargo of
beet, carrot and caulif1ower seed
from the United States reached that
distant Asiatic country, where in
sufficient nutrition is an historic
problem for the inhabitants.
veach Works on Program.
Roy Veach, agricultural expert In
the State Department, has been
working on the program for the use
of grown seed to develop
and revise the agrarian economies
Of foreign lands.
Seed is the foundation for re-
facilitating the countries in Europe
wrecked by the Nazis.
The rise of the American seed
growing industry is wartime
phenomenon. Before 1889 Germany
had almost a world monopoly in
vegetable seeds. but no longer. To-
day the United States could meet
the cauliflower seed requirements of
the world. The American output of
spinach seed has increased 13 times
in three years. The Agricultural
Marketing Administration has
bought 100000 worth of seeds in the
United States this year for shipment
to Russia alone.
American seeds have gone to Aus
tralia. They are ticketed in time
for France, Belgium, the Neither
lands, Denmark, Norway, Poland,
the Balkan countries-in short, the
whole list of occupied regions and
perhaps Germany and Italy. Re-
construction of farm economy in
these countries will be as difficult
problem as relief. The Germans
have stripped the farms of horses
and much machinery will need re-
placing.
The British government has been
at work on these questions as well
as the American, and Viscount
Cranborne, the retiring colonial Sec
retary in London, has said:
The greater part of Europe will
emerge from the war denuded of
stocks of food as we'll as of raw
materials and with few financial re-
sources. There is today
both in the government and outside
a general appreciation that immedi-
ate action must be taken to provide
for postwar needs and to insure
that economic recovery will be re-
started as soon as possible. 1 think
his majesty's government can claim
to have taken the lead in this
matter"
Inter Allied Committee Formed.
Long before the Lehman appoint
ment was announced by the White
House, the United Nations estab-
lished in London an Inter-Allied
Committee on Postwar Require
ments under the presidency of Sir
Frederick Leith Ross, who visited
the United States during the sum-
mer. The job of relief and rehabili-
tation, however, is to be centralized
under American direction because
this is the country with the greatest
food resources.
In spite of the enormity OF the
trials confronting Mr.. Lehman and
the United Nations on the day the
war ends, both London and Wash
ington are looking far ahead with
equanimity toward sort Of re-
shaping of the world. A leader in
this trend of thought here is Howard
Tolley, the chief of the Bureau of