OCR Text |
Show MWG0-auND Washington, D. C. BIGGEST CROP BUYING PLAN YET During debate on the lease-lend bill, Senator Murray of Montana came up to the vice president's dais and whispered in Henry Wallace's ear. The bill, he said, ought to contain con-tain a provision whereby Britain would buy or borrow farm products as well as armaments. Vice President Wallace replied that he thought so, too, but had not felt it necessary to "spell it out" in the bill. However, he mentioned the matter to Senate Floor Leader Barkley, who offered an amendment to the lease-lend bill. This was the simple mechanics whereby the biggest farm purchase plan since the last war was started. Most people don't realize it but ! the lease-lend act makes the United I States not only the arsenal for Great ! Britain, but also her granary, packing pack-ing house and slaughter house. A total of $1,300,000,000 has been allocated out of the seven billions for British defense all of which will bring sorely needed help to the farmer. So while industrial regions have prospered in this war, the farmer so far has not In the last war not only England, but France, Italy and the Scandinavian Scandi-navian countries, even Russia needed need-ed wheat and cofton. Farm prices zoomed. But in this war all these areas except England have been cut off from American markets by the British blockade. As a result, farm prices are low and surpluses mounting. We have a corn carry-over four times normal, nor-mal, or 700,000,000 bushels. The wheat carry-over is 400,000,000 bushels; bush-els; while the government has 11,000,000 bales of cotton under loan or wholly owned, plus 372,000,000 pounds of tobacco, 2,735.000 pounds of surplus butter, 3,609,009 dozen surplus eggs, 37,000,000 pounds of surplus vegetables and 25,000,000 pounds of surplus fruit. In other words, the ever-normal granary is not normal at alL It is full and running run-ning over. Sales or loans to England will be chiefly in live stock products such as canned pork, dried eggs, evaporated evapo-rated milk, lard and cheese, which England once got from Poland, Denmark Den-mark and Holland, but doesn't any more. Agriculture department experts who have been studying the question ques-tion don't expect the British to ask for wheat or corn. England gets all its needs from the Dominions. But they figure that British purchases of live stock products, such as pork, will greatly help the price of corn and be a great boon to the corn belt Whether or not the British will pay for this later or make some kind of a swap, has not been decided yet. The matter is entirely up to the President and he has kept completely complete-ly mum on the subject Note Man at the head of the farm-products-for-Britain program is Milo Perkins, a dynamic young Texan, who as administrator of surplus sur-plus marketing already is an expert on getting rid of Uncle Sam's perpetual per-petual excess crops. ANCHORS A WEIGH Bottlenecks may be snarling some phases of defense construction, but not the two-ocean navy. Inside fact is that battleships, cruisers and destroyers de-stroyers the "big three" of the ship-building program are being turned out months ahead of the schedules laid down when congress approved the naval expansion last year. Two new battleships, the North Carolina and the Washington, originally origi-nally slated for commission late this year, will join the fleet in June, increasing the number of "battle-wagons" "battle-wagons" to 17. Fifteen others are under construction. Naval chiefs estimated that the top number of destroyers to come off the ways this year would be 12. But actually 17 will be completed in the next nine months, bringing the destroyer fleet up to 176, a large part of them super-craft of the latest design. Here's the present status of the whole fleet: Ships on hand 15 battleships; 18 heavy cruisers; 19 light cruisers, 159 destroyers, including 74 over-age; 105 submarines, including 68 overage; over-age; and 6 aircraft carriers. Total combat ships in commission 322. Ships being built 17 battleships (including the North Carolina and the Washington); 14 heavy cruisers; 40 light cruisers; 204 destroyers; 80 submarines; and 12 aircraft carriers. car-riers. Total ships being built 367. The 204 destroyers will be completed complet-ed by 1945; 17 this year, 45 in 1942, 86 in 1943, 52 in 1944, and four in 1945. MERRY-GO-ROUND There are many wags In the state department, but only one who wears the name Alfred Wagg III. He handles refugees. Colorado's Rep. Edward T. Taylor, Tay-lor, 83, is the wordiest man in the Congressional Directory. His personally per-sonally penned biography, over 650 words long, takes up almost an entire en-tire page. Unlike 81-year-old Sen. Carter Glass, who does not give the year of his birth, Taylor makes n secret of his. |