Dominion Wheat

To London soon after the present National Government was returned by the largest Conservative majority in British history, hurried Canadian Prime Minister Richard Bedford Bennett, rich, pious, ultra-Conservative and politely anxious to sell as much as possible of Canada's towering grain surplus. Last week Mr. Bennett ate the last of several quiet meals with Scot MacDonald and Minister of Dominions James Henry Thomas. Then, without a word for publication, reticent Premier Bennett sailed for Canada while his great and blatant friend, Baron Beaverbrook, trumpeted Bennett achievements.

Not as rumor but as fact Canadian-born Baron Beaverbrook's Daily Express reported that Canada's Bennett has persuaded the British Government to launch an Empire wheat quota scheme nearly as ambitious in regard to wheat as Baron Beaverbrook's own sweeping proposal for "Empire Free Trade" (TIME, Dec. 2, 1929, et seq.).

"When Mr. Bennett arrived," said the Daily Express, "the whole situation regarding economic unity for the Empire seemed nebulous. Now the Empire outlook is transformed, for the quota is definitely the beginning of an Empire fiscal union."

The wheat beginning would be made as follows: .First the principle would be established that Great Britain, which imported last year from all her Dominions 2,000,000 tons of wheat (37) bushels to the ton), must import hereafter, on the same basis, a minimum of 2,800,000 tons of such "Empire wheat."

To avoid squabbling and charges of favoritism, the Mother Country would not fix a separate quota for her imports from each Dominion. Instead British wheat importers would be required to show that a certain percentage of all their imports (55% was suggested), came from one or more Dominions. Inter-Dominion competition for the British market would thus be kept keen.

To make the quota law enforceable and prevent wheat 'legging, certificates of "dominion origin" would accompany each shipment and the British Government would check these certificates at the British importer's warehouse, then double-check at British flour mills, where each miller would be obliged by law to maintain the 55% "dominion proportion" in each & every sack of British flour.

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