Wheat, Death, Reds

Other governments are merely political monopolies. The Soviet State is monopoly incarnate: political, economic, social. If some imp should pop the idea of trying to depress world automobile prices into President Herbert Hoover's head he could not order Fords and Chevrolets sold at $100 apiece. But Soviet Dictator Josef Stalin can do things remarkably like that. To understand this, to gauge the potential power of Red statesmen to work mischief in world markets, was more vital last week than to be scared by lurid rumors of Red grain dumping in Liverpool and Amsterdam, Red speculating for the decline in Chicago's wheat pit (see p. 17).

Moscow meanwhile was in significant frenzy about an internal food crisis, useful measure of the limit beyond which Red statesmen cannot go in external dumping. The Soviet press (a Government monopoly) told citizens throughout Russia of a British plot to "starve" them. Naming names, Izvestia declared the chief villain to be Andrew Fothergill Esq., a director of the British Union Cold Storage Co.'s plant at Riga, Latvia. He was said to have bribed the Chairman of the Soviet Meat Trust, Professor Alexander Riazanzev, to "disorganize the Soviet food distribution system and promote wholesale famine in Russia." Some Soviet papers said the Meat Chairman had taken a $50,000 bribe, others raised the sum to $500,000.

With 47 alleged associates Professor Riazanzev, once a General in the Tsarist army, was arrested speedily at Moscow. Fired by the Soviet press, workers' meetings throughout European Russia telegraphed to the Capital resolution after resolution demanding Death for the 48 accused. One resolution asked that the supreme Soviet decoration, "The Order of Lenin," be conferred on Ogpu, the secret service organization which had ferreted out this plot. A new flood of contributions poured in from workers for the proposed Soviet Zeppelin, to be christened Ogpu in honor of the secret police.

Royal, Ancient Gamble. Within 48 hours, the 48 accused had been tried as "irreconcilable enemies of the Soviet State," found guilty, shot. Usually such executions are announced in tiny type on inside pages of Soviet papers. But last week the Government ordered big black headlines, first-page position. So breathlessly fast did events move, so blatantly sincere and joyous seemed popular response to the shootings, that all question of whether the dead men could possibly have provoked a general famine vanished from the realm of practical politics. Point of the savage affair seemed to be that it offered fresh, significant proof of Ivan Ivanovitch's present pressing concern to fill his belly. If food were even fairly easy to obtain in Russia, popular fury could not thus be roused to national frenzy merely because the No. I Soviet meat man was supposed to have taken a bribe.

This being so, the ability of the Soviet State to dump foodstuffs abroad is not spaciously limitless but definitely limited in 1930. Much as docile Russians will stand from their Dictator, eagerly as they swallow what Stalin tells his press to print, he can still take just so much grain and no more out of their mouths to sell abroad for ready cash.

Russia has not nearly reached her pre-War level of grain production. She will probably be buying grain before the next twelve months are out. But for the present Dictator Stalin, his authority absolute, can fling a total of perhaps 45,000,000 bushels where it will cause the most excitement. If he succeeds in breaking the world grain market to new lows, Russia will profit doubly because: I) her trade agents are already speculating ("selling short") to profit from the decline; 2) when she begins to buy grain she will get it cheaper than even her present "dumping" price. For the first time since Kings & Emperors played at finance with whole nations which they considered their personal property, a super-monopolistic state has risen able to play this game, eager to try, likely to bungle the colossal gamble. Hyde's Idea. In Moscow grim smiles last week greeted U. S. Secretary of Agriculture Arthur Mastick Hyde's naive idea (TIME, Sept. 29) that Dictator Stalin "cannot" throw actual grain into the World market to cover his short sales because right now "the Russians find it necessary to ration their own people and to shoot men for forging food cards!" This is exactly what Moscow's "Man of Steel" can do, is doing, will continue to do up to a purposeful point. When the Russian stomach begins to feel the pinch it is and will be convenient to execute subordinates for "plotting famine." Europe's Reation: Swamped with Eggs!" Not only wheat but barley, corn, eggs, lumber and other commodities were rumored dumped by Russia last week upon Europe. M. Le Senateur Henri Cheron, famed Finance Minister of France in the "Stabilized Franc" Cabinet two years ago (TIME, Nov. 19, 1928), cracks and scoops out a soft boiled egg nearly every morning,* white and profuse though his whiskers are. Last week this excitable elder statesman suspected every egg set before him of being from Moscow. What drove him frantic was that he could not be sure! "In Great Britain, Belgium and Germany it is otherwise!", stormed he to correspondents. "With great wisdom those countries stamp imported eggs with an indication of origin at the frontier./- France must do the same! Millions of eggs from Moscow are being dumped upon us, Messieurs. I have information that the Paris market has been swamped with these Soviet eggs-- eggs of such poor quality as to constitute a menace to the public health!"

Equally panicky but less picturesque than M. Cheron, England's Daily Mail, organ of Red-baiting Viscount Rothermere, declared that Soviet lumber was being offered "on the quiet" in London last week for $55.20 per "standard" (a standard equals 200 board feet; a board foot is a piece of lumber one foot square, one inch thick), a terrific cut under the London basic price of $65.25. Charging that a deal at this Red cut price had already been made by London's Central Softwood Buying Corp. Ltd. the Daily Mail moaned: "This will depress the value of our present British timber stocks on hand $17,000.000."

"Poor Europe! Stupid Europe!", wrote onetime French Prime Minister Edouard Herriot in L'Ere Nouvelle last week. Proposing an economic federation of European states to resist Soviet "dumping" and U. S. "imperialism," he flayed his successful French political rival M. Briand for proposing a mere piddling political "United States of Europe" (TIME. Sept. 22 et ante). He concluded: "Poor Europe which is short sighted and refuses to unite! Stupid Europe which does not hear the crackings of its obsolete construction!"

Moscow & The Miller. Not in the least excited last week were millers, middlemen of wheat, who like to see it as cheap as possible. The Miller, organ of Great Britain's milling industry, waxed cheerful even over Dictator Stalin's policy of taking food out of Russian mouths to "dump" abroad.

"The question of human distress is a matter of degree only," philosophized The Miller. "In that the export of wheat enables Russia to buy machinery and other merchandise, her increased grain sales may be considered a cause of gratification. There are citizens in the United States--the most prosperous country in the world--who lack food and clothing and other necessities of life, yet America can export when and how and at what price she likes without any cry of 'crime' being raised."

Getting down to statistics the cool-headed Miller said: "It is very doubtful if our home growers would be much better off were Soviet competition withdrawn. Figures of [Russian] shipments to date give no cause for alarm and, indeed, are very small compared with those of 1913.

"The quantity of Russian wheat in passage to European ports at the end of last week amounted to only 3,715,200 bushels out of 44,995,200 bushels in passage from all exporting countries. North American shipments on the way to Europe amount to 29,762,880 bushels, and Australian shipments to 5,036,160 bushels, together nearly ten times the quantity in passage from Russia.

"North America last week loaded 9,146,822 bushels for Europe, against Russia's 871,000. ... In the corresponding week of 1913 the quantity shipped from Russia was 5,531,520 bushels, compared with 3,806,016 bushels from North America.

"From these figures it will be obvious that Russia has a long way to go before she can be considered as once more a large exporter."

Significance. In 1913 Russian wheat exports were 450,000.000 bushels. Last week U. S. experts still spoke in terms of 45,000,000 bushels as the maximum possible Russian export for 1930. In Moscow itself Soviet statesmen, cheered by returns showing that Russia's present "bumper crop" is 10% to 12% greater than last year, spoke of a possible export surplus of 90,000,000 bushels, one-fourth of the 1913 figure. If this actually "small" Russian export can break the bottom out of wheat prices, the underlying cause must be some concealed "big" factor. It is this:

When Russian wheat exports ceased during the War, farmers in the Americas and elsewhere added to their fields until today they have 42,000,000 more acres under wheat than in 1913.

With Russian production curtailed during her revolutionary and early reconstruction periods, these 42,000,000 extra acres have been needed, profitable. But now, with Soviet production gradually creeping up, Red wheat, added to the rest, is producing a primary, "genuine" world surplus and depression of wheat prices, this quite apart from the secondary, "artificial" slump which Dictator Stalin's shrewd machinations may produce.

--He is on a regime (diet).

/-During George V's illness Her Majesty the Queen in Council issued her celebrated "Hen & Duck Egg Decree" (TIME, Feb. 25, 1929):

"It shall not be lawful to import any hen or duck eggs in shell into the United Kingdom nor to sell or expose for sale in the United Kingdom any imported hen or duck eggs in shell, unless they bear an indication of origin.

"The indication of origin shall be conspicuously and durably marked in ink on the shell of each imported egg in letters not less than two millimetres in height."

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