Wheat, Wheat, Wheat

While the world's currencies were confounding the moneychangers of Europe last week (see above), the world's wheat was doing hardly less to the grain traders of three continents. Breaking over the Winnipeg market, a dark storm of selling tumbled the price 6-c- per bu. in two days. In Liverpool, Rotterdam and Buenos Aires wheat fell in confusion. In Chicago, no longer a world market, all contracts dropped below $1 for the first time since the Drought. Other commodities, notably rubber, joined the downward march.

The Dominion burned with rumors--that the Canadian Wheat Pool had withdrawn support; that the Pool was liquidating; that the Government was about to take over the Winnipeg Exchange. All this having been denied, the market steadied. But loud were the cries from the Prairie Provinces, demanding a world-wide investigation and if not that then a crackling short-selling probe.

And by the week-end two foreign goats were justifiably tagged. Goat No. 1 was the Government of France, which guarantees to its peasants a price of $1.45 per bu. True to form, the peasants garnered more wheat than France could eat. What it could not eat, France was last week dumping for what it could get.* It was even willing to lay down wheat in Montreal, all expenses paid at a price below Winnipeg.

Goat No. 2 was the Argentine, which is busily clearing its elevators of carry-over for the next crop. Visions of Argentine wheat flooding the U. S. haunt the Board of Trade, but the Buenos Aires prices are not yet far enough below Chicago to hurdle the tariff.

For the time being, however, Buenos Aires is low enough to undersell Winnipeg--the highest world market, thanks to the support of the Wheat Pool, which hopes with good reason that other world prices will catch up after the harvesting season.

*In France last week was Rexford Guy Tugwell, who got some of his ideas by studying French price-pegged agriculture.

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