An International Food-Pool ?
The meeting of the international food conference at Hot Springs has been temporarily overshadowed by the proceedings at Washing- ton, the more so since the facilities normally accorded to newspaper correspondents have been withheld. But the delegates have been getting down to serious work, and both the British and the Americans have made proposals dealing with the long-term policy which is the subject of the conference. The latter are recommending the creation of a permanent international body for food and agricultural problems. Such an organisation is presupposed in the British proposals. Aim- ing at a policy of expanding production which would be based on the needs of under-nourished peoples in all parts of the world, the British delegation proposes the creation of a world food-pool which could absorb any surpluses when too much was produced and satisfy
the needs of consumers when there was a shortage. It is maintained that if such a stock were properly managed by an international body it would protect producers and consumers alike from short- term fluctuations in price. The Soviet delegation have gone outside the agenda in asking for an immediate increase in lend-lease food shipments to meet the urgent needs both of Russian soldiers and of people in the liberated regions. On its merits such a question obviously demands consideration, though it may embarrass a con- ference assembled to recommend only a long-term policy. The difficulty appears to have been got over by a proposal to study the telation between the immediate and the long-term problems. It should be remembered that the conference is in effect a grand committee of inquiry appointed to recommend an international plan for food and agriculture for the consideration of the Govern- ments of the United Nations, not to cope •with immediate emergencies.
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