561.311F1/178: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain (Bingham)
218. For Murphy from Wallace. Press statement released August 15 after conferring with Morgenthau states our position on international wheat situation as follows:
“We stand ready to participate in any reasonable plan which the other three great exporting countries will accept. We do not insist on European cooperation at this time, but if the other exporters insist on it, we will accept any reasonable plan for European cooperation which is satisfactory to Canada, Australia and Argentina. We shall wait until August 24 to see if they can reach an agreement for definite action, before we announce our wheat reduction for next year. If the other exporters will not cooperate we shall use the full powers of the Agricultural Adjustment Act26 to protect American wheat producers. We will make less reduction in acreage than if other countries were working with us; we will maintain our wheat producers’ incomes through benefit payments; and we will move out of the country burdening surpluses of wheat, such as that now existing on the Pacific Coast. We recognize that our European market for wheat has greatly diminished; but if no agreement is reached we will find a place for our wheat in Oriental markets. In the past, those markets have been divided between American, Canadian, and Australian sources, with the distribution of the supply varying from year to year with crops and market condition”.
At the London conference you will of course confer with us before finally agreeing to any plan proposed by the other exporting countries. [Wallace.]
- 48 Stat. 31.↩