Pool Man Found

Canada's wheat pool is the biggest on Earth. Yet for a whole year the honor of being General Manager of its central selling agency has gone begging. Even last week nobody wanted it. Said Pool President A. J. MacPhail at Winnipeg:

"On more than one occasion we have approached Mr. John I. McFarland of Calgary . . . but on each occasion he has declined the offer. He has now recognized the gravity of the situation, however, and has accepted the appointment offered him by unanimous vote of the central board."

Like the U. S. Grain Stabilization Corp., the Canadian Cooperative Wheat Producers Ltd. (central selling agency for the Canadian Wheat Pool) has guessed wrong, held too many millions of bushels too long, expecting a rise in World grain prices which has turned out to be a fall. Approximately 100,000,000 bushels of wheat are held by the Canadian Pool, approximately 110,000,000 bushels by the U. S. group. What to do? Liquidate at present prices, the lowest in the history of the Winnipeg Grain Exchange?

"I'm not taking this job as a Liquidator!" snapped Canada's new pool General Manager last week. "If it had been necessary to appoint a Liquidator, I would not have accepted the job!"

General Manager John I. McFarland had only just returned to Canada when he spoke. He has been in London these past few weeks with Prime Minister Richard Bedford Bennett of Canada at the Imperial Conference (TIME, Oct. 13 to Nov. 24). Mr. McFarland saw his chief stand up among the other Empire Prime Ministers and propose the erection of a tariff wall around the Empire, one effect of which would have been that the Mother Country would have saved the Canadian situation by buying most of Canada's wheat. Devoutly may U. S. farmers give thanks that Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Snowden set his little steel-trap jaw against this proposal, forced Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald to kill it. It was contrary to Mr. Snowden's faith in free trade, a faith which he holds with fierce, fanatical tenacity. It would have been a staggering blow to the already groggy U. S. Grain Stabilization Corp.

When Mr. McFarland consented at long last to become General Manager, where was Mr. Bennett? The Canadian Prime Minister whose welcome in London had been without enthusiasm was being royally feted in Paris. This was due to the wangling prowess of one of Canada's smartest sons, one of the most popular foreigners in Paris, Mr. Philippe Roy, Canadian Minister to France.

Mister, or rather Monsieur. Roy saw to it that Mr. Bennett (no Monsieur he) was banqueted first by the French National Association for Economic Expansion, then officially by Minister of Commerce Pierre Etienne Flandin, famed for his philippics against the U. S. tariff. With his usual candor Mr. Bennett said that what he was after was French orders for Canada's surplus wheat, and rumors were not long in growing that what M. Flandin was after was Canadian orders for French surplus wine. In recent years the French have shown a tendency to buy more wheat from Canada, less from the U. S. This year France must buy, from somewhere, about 75,000,000 bushels of wheat, can of course buy where she chooses or is induced to buy.

Canadian farmers wondered, hoped, that Mr. Bennett had been able to give General Manager McFarland some good reason for saying that he is not going to be a "Liquidator," but rather a Star Statesman. Across a wine-set banquet table Prime Minister Andre Tardieu of France said last week to the World in general and to Prime Minister Bennett of Canada in particular: "Friendship between Canada and France is a long established fact of which there is no question!"*

Mere words -- yet they contrasted strongly with the malaprop tongue-wagging of British Minister of Dominions John Henry Thomas who recently flung in Mr. Bennett's teeth that Great Britain knows Canada is looking out chiefly for herself, that the Mother Country will do the same.

Egyptian interest in the Canadian situation focused last week upon a few bushels of wheat recently harvested at Robson, British Columbia, by Farmer Charles A. Bony. "Not that it's the best wheat!" said he, "It's soft and won't fetch much of a price. But there's no other wheat hereabouts that sprouted from grain sealed up 3,000 years ago in the coffin of Tutankhamen."

When the royal tomb was opened in 1922 some wheat grains and other foods were found. In 1926 a friend sent a few of the grains to Farmer Sydney Cunningham of Alberta, who in turn sent grains produced by his original "King Tut Wheat" to Farmer Charles Borry who spoke up last week. Said he stoutly, "I'll plant some more next year."

*Politically Canada was a French colony during the whole of the 17th, the greater part of the 18th Century. Socially, linguistically the Province of Quebec is still French. Its conservative votes were the decisive factor in putting Conservative Mr. Bennett into the prime ministry. No Canadian politician is complete until thoroughly grounded in French-Canadian psychology.

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