ARMY & NAVY: Swap

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Ambassador Joe Kennedy, for the U. S., President Oliver Frederick George Stanley of the Board of Trade, for Great Britain, last week signed in London a swap of raw materials which both parties insisted was totally different from the Dictators' market-ruining barter deals in that the U. S. British materials would be stored off the market for seven years, used by the Governments during that time only in case of war. The U. S. got 85,000 tons of rubber, about one-fifth of a peace year's consumption. Britain got 600,000 bales of cotton, almost half as much as she now buys from the U. S. in a year.

Only 30,000 tons of the rubber are now in stock in Singapore; the rest must ooze out of trees, be dried and baled for shipment. The U. S. cotton is but 41% of the 13,700,000-bale mountain held by the Government. To release it, Congress has only to authorize Commodity Credit Corp. to dispose of it at less than the prices loaned on it to U. S. planters. Joe Kennedy, old-time Wall Street trader, felt tickled that he had saved his country about $6,000,000 on a $30,000,000 purchase, also that half the swapped goods will be carried in U. S. bottoms. If war does not break out in seven years, that will be time enough to decide how to liquidate the holdings without smashing prices in two world markets.

> Negotiations to swap U. S. cotton (and wheat) for Dutch rubber (and tin) were reported off last week because Germany objected.