CORN PRODUCTION BILL.
(To THE EDITOR or THE n SPECTATOR.") SIR,—I observe that you call attention in your issue of the 5th inst. to an account given in a letter by Mr. J. Hay Thorburn in the Morning Post of proposals made by him which were rejected by Mr. Runciman, on the subject of wheat storage. Mr. Thor- burn's scheme was put before the Board of Trade in the spring of 1915 in a document headed, " This scheme is the property of J. Hay Thorburn; all rights reserved." The ground on which Mr. Runciman was advised that the scheme was of no use to the Government was not that it was concerned with wheat shortage, but that it' was a proposition involving a serious inflation of the currency. " Warrants " appeared to be as essential a part of Mr. Thorburn's contribution to the solution of these problems as that of storage; storage being, in fact, by no means a novel idea in these discussions. Nothing was therefore to be gained by the expenditure of time on the interview for which Mr. Thorburn [We can make very little of our correspondent's defence of Mr. Runciman. The essential point is: Did Mr. Runciman or did he not cause supplies of wheat to be stored in this country sufficient to insure us against the submarine peril? If he did not, no talk about why he rejected this or that scheme, and whether certain schemes were good or bad, interests us in the least. We have• italicized the words in this country- advisedly. The wheat was- wanted here on British soil. Storing wheat in Canada or acquiring " options " in the United States is not the kind of storing with which we are dealing. if Mr. Runciman or hie defenders can assure us that he stored grain here, he is of course absolved. of blame.—Ea. Spectator.]
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