865.6584/9–347
The Italian Ambassador (Tarchiani) to the Acting Secretary of State
The Italian Ambassador presents his compliments to the Honorable the Acting Secretary of State and has the honor to draw his kind attention to the following.
In the meetings held in Rome between the Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, Mr. Clayton, and the Chiefs of the Italian Economic Agencies,1 and in the interview, which took place in Paris, between the United States Secretary of Agriculture, Mr. Anderson, and [Page 963] the Italian Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Segni,2 the Italian cereals situation for the period July 1947–June 1948 was illustrated in detail.
It was then pointed out by the Italian Representatives that the need for importation of supplies of cereals would have been, on the basis of the IEFC questionnaire pattern, of 3.400.000 tons in the above said period, but that such figure could be reduced to the smaller amount of 2.900.000 tons in view of the following facts:
- a)
- in the month of July 1947 and even in the present month, the consumption has been reduced for failure of distribution with some consequent savings, (which however raise increasing opposition and unrest and cannot obviously be continued indefinitely);
- b)
- the Italian Government is planning to exercise the utmost pressure on the farmers for obtaining the maximum results from the amassments (as in fact the July amassment has already shown the original target for that month having been surpassed);
- c)
- the Italian Government hopes to be in a position to waive a part of the allocation by cutting the end stock requirements, in case some advance crops in the southern regions would be possible.
It was pointed out to the American Representatives that, of the above said amount of 2,9 million tons, 2,2 million tons should have come from the United States at the rate of 220 thousand tons a month beginning from the month of August included, the remaining part of 700 thousand tons having to be imported from Argentine, Canada, Near East. Moreover the necessity was stressed of obtaining such allocation of 220 thousand for the month of August in view of the fact that in the present period of the year the imports from the Near East would not be forthcoming immediately and that already towards the end of September, the Italian Government has essentially to rely on imports in order to obtain all the supplies needed for the distribution.
The Honorable the Acting Secretary of State is aware that a meeting of the Cereals Committee of the I.E.F.C. took recently place in Winnipeg. In such meeting the general situation of the allocations was reviewed and a resolution proposed by the United States delegate was approved, according to which, among other decisions, Italy should receive an allocation of 775.000 tons of cereals in the period July-December 1947, of which 540.000 should come from the United States. To this resolution the Italian Delegate strongly objected voting against.
Should such resolution in fact be adopted, Italy would receive in the months between July and December, from the United States, an amount of cereals which is less than half of what was previously asked to the American Representatives above mentioned. This would entail [Page 964] unforeseeable consequences in the present Italian situation: the working classes have already indicated their strong concern for the limitation of the cereal supplies distributed to them and for the inflationary spiral that such shortage of cereals is entailing. Moreover, the Italian Government, which is constantly faced with the problem of shifting from the producing provinces to the others the amounts needed for the distribution of the minimum ration, will have to fight against insolvable difficulties to achieve such distribution, as various provinces have already shown their reluctance to comply with the Government orders in the awareness that cereal supplies will become even shorter in the near future.
The Italian Ambassador has the honor, therefore, to invite the most serious attention of the Honorable the Acting Secretary of State to the gravity of such a problem, asking him to explore any possibility in order to arrive at an increase in the allocation to Italy in the future months to come.
The Italian Ambassador realizes the present shortage throughout the world but cannot but stress the great concern of the Italian Government for the consequences that inadequate provisions in the field of cereal supplies would entail for the social and economic situation in Italy.
The Italian Ambassador thanks the Honorable the Acting Secretary of State for his kind interest on the matter.