Show controls ont wils necessary in food crisis 0 0 export import regulations vital for curina curing world his ills by BAUKHAGE news analyst and commentator service 1616 eye street N W washington D C washington the sudden de scent upon columbia s shoulders of the mantle of 71 world leadership h has a s forced the I 1 president to add all sorts of ot odd 4 jobs to his other extra cons titu dional functions traveling sales man is one of them almost be fore he learned his way around the white house he had the unit ed nations as baukhage sign ment at san francisco hard ly was he back from the golden gate when he was ordered to pots dam he already has become our flym fly ingest gest chief executive the mexican trip was scarcely over when he was called to the wearying vigil at his mother s bedside meanwhile he has conducted white house business without en countering too much criticism to tor r being absent without leave in fact his popularity with the public has grown but at this writing some of his followers are growing a little res tive about what they call his alpar ent neglect of certain issues which ought to be brought emphatically before the public what was considered a crisis in world affairs was met successfully by overwhelming congressional support tor for the post relief and greek turkish aid bills al though at times it has balanced upon a rather thin edge the ity of bi partisan bipartisan foreign policy has been maintained but there is an other matter which those most concerned declare has not been brought home to the public the world food situation there are two important facts 1 two years have pa passed ed since the end of the war and the world food situation is no better 2 although congress the peo pie has been willing to vote huge funds for relief it appears unwilling to continue certain controls on business biti without out which the machinery for helping the stricken countries to their feet will break down the first job Is to bring home the seriousness of point one the second job which has been dumped into the president presidents s lap Is to convince congress of the importance of point two press and radio have been asked to help with the first job they are trying here s one small contri pu tion in terms of dollars the de st ruction caused by world war II 11 was seven times that of world war I 1 recovery Is therefore at least seven times as hard economic dit dif faculties are multiplied more than sevenfold because of political dian curties it is impossible to estimate the destruction in terms of what has happened to social and political values As to point two that bacor becomes nes a concrete issue which ought to be in debate before these lines are printed namely the question of ex tending certain wartime controls over exports and imports briefly it if export controls go off foreign nations can bid against each other for food wheat for example that will send the price of wheat skyrocketing what does that meana mean in the first place it means the country with the most money gets the most wheat regardless of its need others go hungry it means the american taxpayer will have to pay a fancy price for the wheat the government buys it means extra american d dollars 0 I 1 I 1 a r s which could be used to buy other american products which would encourage production will be sucked out of foreign pockets and world trade will be stultified by just that much that is on argument for extending controls on exports fortunately there are also a lot of selfish interest reasons for con trolling some exports it a this way the man who extracts oil from soy beans although he is quite willing to have his oil exported probably can sell it here anyway but he want beans from which he ho gets the oil sent out of the country the mai who refines the oil doesn doean t mind having his refined product ex ported but he doesn doean t want t the he un refined oil his raw material which he has to buy exported the man who uses that refined oil to make margarine doesn doean t want to compete with foreigners tor for it al though he s quite willing to have foreigners buy his margarine these mixed motives don t add up to a very good argument for con gress because the only controls de sired are for the other fellow it doesn doean t generate too much pressure because there are enough agins to balance the furs but when it comes cornes to imports it s a different story take fertilizer britain and the united states stra ning to increase production now are using twice as much fer as in prewar years that is all right but the destitute euro countries with their very tired soil need every ounce they can get and if there were no import con they would get less the rich buyers would get more the pres sure on congress is all against limit ing importation of fertilizer some imports into america are of course highly d to get those american dollars abroad in order that foreign nations may buy raw materials and other things but if we are to keep the rest of the markets alive until they can teed feed themselves what we give out and what we take in will have to be made to fit the needs of the situation not the desires of the american busl busi who doesn doean t realize that if he is given too free a hand he 11 be cutting off his own nose with it A |