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Show Canadian, U. S. Colleges Offer Plan for Prosperity Two Schools Offer Prescription for Postwar Post-war Depression in Pamphlet Entitled 'The Midcontinent and the Peace.' (' I ' - i t. , , a By BAUKIIAGE A'etfS Analyst and Commentator. WNU Service, Union Trust Building, Washington, D. C. Out of the part of the world farthest farth-est from the fighting, literally and figuratively, has come an interesting interest-ing international prescription for the cure of the world's post-war headache head-ache the spell of depression that we have to be ready for. The formula is summarized in a 43-page pamphlet that I wish everyone every-one could read. The title is "The Midcontinent and the Peace." The cover is an earthy brown embellished embel-lished with alternating rows of golden gold-en grain sheaves, fat porkers and trucks. It is a report made jointly by the Universities of Minnesota and Manitoba. Mani-toba. It has nothing to do with departments de-partments of state, it has no official status beyond the fact that the American and Canadian governors asked their respective state universities univer-sities to do the job. It is a splendid down-to-brass-tacks example of the recognition of the common interests of two important areas lying on opposite op-posite sides of an international - boundary line. The gist of the report is this: I. Western Europe must arrange greatly to increase its imports of wheat, lard and pork after the war. II. Canada and the United States must reorganize their automobile-producing automobile-producing industries so that a maximum maxi-mum employment in Canadian factories fac-tories can be maintained; cost of autos be reduced to Canadian buyers buy-ers and American car output increased. in-creased. III. Agriculture in the prairie provinces of Canada and the central northwest United States must continue con-tinue along the lines of agricultural agricul-tural specialization developed out of necessity during the war. The Connection Now, at first glance, the connection connec-tion between these steps may not be evident, but the report makes the. whole effort clear and also shows how the program can be carried car-ried out. There is nothing new or revolutionary in the methods discussed, dis-cussed, nor in the reasoning concerning con-cerning their results, but a striking assemblage of data gathered and arranged in such a manner that it offers what appears to be a logical program of action. In the first place, the report shows how domestic economic policies' (the ones I briefly summarized in the three points above) are, in fact, international policies. It demonstrates demon-strates with figures -and explanation - that "sound and strong internal economies in Canada and the United States" must have "resoundingly important effects on the external world." Examples offered to prove this include in-clude the figures which show how the rise and fall of demand in Canada Can-ada and the United States affected other parts of the world up to and after the depression hit us in 1929. In less than three decades, imports im-ports in the United States of ten different commodities increased from 300 to 1,700 million dollars worth. Take silk: the yearly average aver-age importation of silk bought by the United States from 1901-05 amounted amount-ed to 45 million dollars. In 1929, it had jumped to 432 million dollars. dol-lars. But when the depression struck, it fell to 114 million dollars in 1932. The total imports of the ten commodities com-modities dropped from 1,718 million mil-lion to 534 million dollars and you can imagine what happened in the producing countries when these markets disappeared. One interesting point brought out is that in this period of expanding trade (both import and export) in which Canada and the United States shared, the MUTUAL interests of . the two countries greatly INCREASED IN-CREASED and their competitive interests in-terests declined. Industry Predominant The report shows how agriculture agricul-ture has ceased to be our greatest source of wTealth, how industry has become pre-eminent and to maintain main-tain our agriculture, a healthy condition con-dition of industry must be maintained. main-tained. The old statement is quoted: quot-ed: "Tell me the amount of factory payrolls and I will tell you the price of meat and butter." The plans for our .own agriculture are fairly simple maintenance of the same type of specialization now going on. The plan for Europe is more complicated but since the question of whether the people of western Europe eat at all for the next few years, depends largely on what Russia, the United Slates and the other grain producing countries do, these countries may be able to get western European countries to do what we want. According to the Midcontinent planners, an arrangement should be made whereby western Europe for a period perhaps 15 years would absorb our surplus wheat, pork, lard and other farm products. Production Pro-duction of these products would be stopped in western Europe and resources re-sources saved would be put to efficient ef-ficient use. The producing countries would assist .in reorganizing European Euro-pean agriculture to this changeover. The producing countries would also agree to reduce certain tariffs so that the Europeans can pay for the agricultural products they absorb with goods they can make. (Of course, there is the tough spot.) As for changeovers in agriculture, it is pointed out that, they are not new. Minnesota was once the greatest great-est wheat producing state in the country. That is no longer true. "Mixed farming" has greatly increased. in-creased. Diversified farming rose in Denmark and improved the standard stand-ard of her people these changes come about automatically because the new type introduced pays better. bet-ter. Similar changes, it is implied, could be brought about by ukase, too. Unfortunately, space does not permit per-mit a detailed review of this report but quite as important as its actual content are the forces which initiated initiat-ed it in the first place, it brings to our consciousness the mutual interests inter-ests of this country and our northern neighbor which are plain to any American familiar with Canada and her people but which many in both countries ignore. Again, it y shows how groups in two separate countries coun-tries can get together and work out steps mutually beneficial and likewise like-wise advantageous to the whole world. The most important thing of all, however, is the emphasis on the fact that domestic problems are frequently fre-quently international problems. Diary of a Broadcaster Let me tell you of another crazy rumor story that I heard today. It is so old that it has whiskers but people up and down this land are listening and believing it. A reliable, otherwise hardheaded man told me that an acquaintance of his wife had a friend or relative who had a letter from her boy, a prisoner in Japan. The boy said that he was being well treated and then made a reference to his stamp collection. He had none, so the remark got the people to thinking they repeated repeat-ed it "then the FBI or somebody" took the letter, steamed off the stamp, and under it was written Well, before the man finished telling tell-ing it, I said: "I know what was under it They've, cut my tongue out." How did I guess? Well, I heard that story a dozen times in the last World war. But, to make sure, I made a few inquiries, simply to check the procedure. pro-cedure. In the first place, prisoners of war don't use stamps. They can't write direct to their next of kin. The messages all are relayed through the International Red Cross anyhow. Before we got into the last war, I was sitting on top of a Fifth avenue bus in New York, reading an article by David Lawrence, which reported how the department of justice had run down a story to the effect that sweaters knitted foithe Red Cross were sold to soldiers. The bus stopped a Liberty Bond orator was making a speech I listened. He wras telling the same story that the department of justice had run down and found it had absolutely NO basis whatever. Remember this before you repeat these charming fantasies. Enlistment Enlist-ment in the WACS, as fine a corps of American women as were ever gathered together, has been slowed down by a cheap and dirty story made out of whole cloth and passed from one drooling lascivious mouth to another. |