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Show Shortage, of Food Worries British i See No Relief Ahead Until Har"st Ti.ne. LONDON. The British government, govern-ment, declaring the world is faced with a wheat shortage of eight million mil-lion tons, published a white paper on the subject of food shortage which predicted that near-famine conditions condi-tions would continue until harvest time, the Unitrd Press reports. "Only a combination of favorable circumstances can bring about any material improvement, while unfavorable unfa-vorable crc ps would spell disaster,'" the white paper said. Meanwhile, it said, most of the world will have to do. with dark bread, skimpy helpings of meat, fewer eggs, less ham and bacon and mere dribbles of beer and whisky. Summarizing the outlook for key foodstuffs the white paper said: WHEAT No early solution on the wheat shortage. RICE Acute shortage will not meet the demands of eastern countries, coun-tries, where rice is a staple food: future prospects not encouraging. MEAT Supplies will lag behind requirements for some time; future supplies depend on size of this year's grain harvest. OILS AND FATS No substantiaJ Improvement until far eastern ex- ports are available on a prewar scale; this year's supply win be one-seventh one-seventh of the prewar supply. SUGAR The bottom of the barrel bar-rel will be scraped this year; afterwards the outlook is better. The white paper listed five reasons rea-sons for the food shortage, worse now than at any time during the war: 1. Fuel, fertilizers ind livestock feed has been kept from needed areas because transport is disrupted disrupt-ed the world over. 2. Lack of faith tn currency has restrained producers in many countries coun-tries from seliing for cash. 3. Farm - to - market distribution has been disrupted; farmers usually usual-ly have enough to eat, the townspeople towns-people suffer. 4. Producers were hesitant to sow prewar wheat acreages because midwar surpluses obscured the outlook. out-look. 5. Exceptional series of drouths in main production areas made a serious situation critical |