SOUTHERN HORIZONS 



pastime, and yet none of the experts hesitate to fore- 

 tell that our oil crops will be in excess of our domestic 

 needs and that a trade-hungry Orient, with some neat 

 stockpiles accumulated when shipping was unavailable, 

 will be eager to supply all that fat-hungry Europe can 

 possibly buy. 



We must soberly determine whether the fact that 

 our production of edible oils has almost doubled is 

 going to make us a richer or a poorer people. 



Most of the increase in our edible oils from less 

 than three billion to more than six billion pounds has 

 come from soybeans. Cottonseed has been "frozen," 

 not by law, but by the simple fact that it is a by-product 

 of the cotton crop which has been held down pretty 

 rigidly by both legal and economic restrictions. Con- 

 trariwise, if the time comes when we must shrink our 

 oil-bearing crops, this automatic production of cotton- 

 seed will throw most of the readjustment problems 

 over the fence into the soybean fields. Some peacetime 

 adaptation of the lend-lease program to help distressed 

 Europe will certainly be adopted and will enable us 

 to export edible oils in competition with cheaper oils 

 from the South Seas, China, and Africa. But that will 

 not appeal to the people of those lands who are hope- 

 fully eager to share the promised prosperity in the 

 new world of peace. Once again economic controls may 

 lead us into unexpected political and diplomatic com- 

 plications. Quite aside from any such secondary effects, 



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