Imperial Valley press., 1943-03-14

President RoOSeVeltS indication
that an exploratory United Nations
conference on postwar food sup
plies might be held sometime this
spring points up consideration OF
how this critical problem of feed
ing Europe is to be handled this
time.
Relief for Europe cost the Nnited
States $2.3 billion after the last
war. The $500 million was private
fundS-Red Cross, QuakerS, Neal
East Relief and the like The 81 bill
lion was government money, and
the us contribution represented
approximately IS per cent of all
the relief handed out, the remain
ing Is per cent coming from Great
Britain and other countries.
Theoretically, this $2 billion
worth of food relief was sold.
The ex-enemy countries had to
pay cash and did buy about $500
million worth of surplus Ameri-
can wheat for which farmers had
been paid So pushed by act of
Congress.
Liberated countries and the
allied r.ations that needed relief
got food on credit and that added
about S1.4 billion to the war
debts which were never collected,
so in the long run that post
war relief was pretty much Of
gift.
PANTRY OF DEMOCRACY
The total shipment of foods to
Europe after World War / were 6.7
million tons, three -fourthS of it GER
ealS and sugar. UP to January /,
l943, Lend-LeaSe shipments Of food
To United Nations countries have
reached 4.6 millions tons or nearly
tWo-thirds OF the first postwar
relief load. Less than q fourth Of
the Lend-Lease shipments have been
grains and sugar, the bulk being
meats, dairy products, fruits - in
short, Vitamins. There you have
the principal difference, aside from
quantity. between feeding Europe
after the last war and feeding the
world after this one.
Heavy wartime drains on US.
food supplies. making this country
the pantry as well as the arsenal of
democracy. mean simply that when
this war is over, the United States
will not have the food surpluSeS she
had in 1888 and lead to a con-
clusion that feeding Europe after
this war is a job for the United
-.
States as a whole.
Although the United States has
set up an ambitious organization
to distribute food in its Office of
Foreign Relief and Rehabilitation
under Ex-Governor Herbert ii.
Lehman of New York the job of
producing all this food will re-
quire the combined resources of
all nations on earth, and it is to
marshal these resources that the
Roosevelt exploratory conference
will presumably be called.
First steps toward the formation
Of a United Nations relief and re-
habilitation distribution program
have already been taken through
the U. S. Department of State
and the Lerman organization.
Before the United States got into
the war, the British and repre-
SentativeS of ten countries overrun
by the Nazis formed in London an
Inter-Allied Bureau on Postwar
Requirements. Its chairman is Sir
Frederick Leith-Ross and the or
ganization has become known as the
Ieith-ROss Committee.
POLITICAL DANGER
China and the United States were
not included in the Leith-RoSs
Committe, and any set-up which
counts out those two countries SIM
ply won't count. Also the Leith-
Ross Committee has no authority
to do anything about production of
food or relief and rehabilitation
it merely collects statistics on the
need.
1t is in the execution of any
United Nations program for world
relief and rehabilitation that po-
litical danger lies. The refugee
governments seated in London rep
resent only people who get out of
Europe ahead of the NaziS. 1t is
entirely possible that the people
who had to say at home and take
it will have something to say about
their government when this war is
over, and the refugee governments
may or may not in every case be
the ruling faction.
If however, the food, the re-
lief and the rehabilitation of the
United States or the United Ma
tions are dished out through these
refugee governments, their mere
action in disbursing relief from
outside sources will give them
power to save their own inter-