Apples for Wine

In the international trade game, how many bushels of apples and pears equal how many gallons of wine? All last week the U. S. haggled that point with France. The original import quota of French wines had been 784,000 gal. Most of that had been bought up in the Christmas rush. If any more French wines were to be admitted, the Federal Alcohol Control Administration politely informed the French Embassy in Washington, France would have to buy a great deal more U. S. apples and pears.

Through Commercial Attache Maurice Garreau-Dombasle. the French Govern- ment announced that if the wine quota were doubled to 1,568,000 gal., France was prepared to quadruple its U. S. apple & pear imports to 900.000 bu. That seemed fair enough until it was learned that the thrifty French were quietly planning to up the tariff on U. S. fruits. This joker discovered, M. Garreau-Dombasle was required to present assurances from his Government that the fruit tariff would not be raised. He did, and the ratio of the international trade stood roughly thus: Frenchmen would eat two pecks of U. S. apples or pears for every three quarts of French wine drunk in the U. S.

The man who swung the apple & pear-wine deal was Raymond Clendenin Miller of AAA. A native of Vincennes, Ind., Mr. Miller was preparing for his M. A. examinations at Catholic University when the War broke out. By the time his classmates were getting themselves fitted for graduating gowns, Mr. Miller was wearing an infantry lieutenant's uniform. He served with the 89th Division in France, later with the 160th U. S. Infantry Brigade. Back in Washington after the War, he operated three small cinema houses while studying for the foreign service at Georgetown.

In executing the fruit-wine trade, Mr. Miller set the first pattern for other quota bargainings between foreign liquor exporters and U. S. agricultural exporters.

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