I have your cablegram of January 15th [1] about wheat and note
your statement regarding the very serious world shortage that will
arise for the next six months.

Instructions have been given that every effort be made to export
the quantity you mentioned by June next and I shall keep in
personal touch with the progress made.

Whilst it is possible that the quantity indicated in your
cablegram will be reached I am advised that it will not be
practicable to give a definite statement on the matter for five or
six weeks, although in three weeks time the position should be
clearer than it is now. There are problems of internal transport
which we are endeavouring to resolve and the Victorian crop is
later than normal.

It has just been arranged to withhold wheat for feed to dairy
stock and an examination has been put in train to see whether
further reductions in the use of wheat for feed can be made.

Without a full review we hesitate to reduce feed to poultry and
pigs any further because of the dislocation it might cause those
industries, and the effect it might have on the surplus for export
of eggs and pig meat, practically all of which as you know goes to
the United Kingdom.