Foreign News: Wheat

Last week the price of wheat dropped on the Liverpool exchange to the lowest figure on record. At 47¼¢ it slipped under the 50¢ record set during the hard times of Queen Elizabeth in 1592. Not the threat of man’s destruction in war, but proof of nature’s productivity, left Liverpool traders aghast: from Bulgaria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Lithuania, Poland, Rumania, the U. S. came reports of above-average crops. All told, world wheat production for 1939 was estimated at 3,995,000,000 bushels, exclusive of Russia and China, world consumption at about 3,970,000,000 bushels, with 1939’s carryover estimated at 1,217,000,000 bushels. One European reaction: a German-Rumanian barter deal by which Rumania agreed to deliver 50,000 carloads of wheat to far-from-friendly Germany and Italy, Germany to deliver arms to her frightened, potential victim, Rumania.