Ricochets

To woo Turkey into military alliance, Great Britain promised, among other things, to buy 20,000,000 Ibs. of Turkish tobacco per year for 20 years. In January Britain officially prohibited further purchases of U. S. tobacco.

The South took this very hard, feared the permanent loss of a vital market for its No. 2 cash crop, of which Imperial Tobacco Co., Ltd. usually bought as much as a third. The 1939 tobacco price was saved from ruin when Commodity Credit Corp. spent some $30,000,000 taking the British share off the auctions. But the South could not expect that much help every year.

Nevertheless, dopesters were less alarmed. Their reassuring facts: 1) Great Britain was used to buying upwards of 200,000,000 Ibs. of U. S. tobacco, so that the 20,000,000-lb. market promised to the Turks would make very little difference; 2) the British had on hand a two-and-a-half-year supply of U. S. tobacco, and being out of the market this year didn't mean they would stay out next; 3) during World War I, when Turkey was a German ally, Britons weaned themselves from sweetish Turkish, got the grown-up Virginia habit.

Last week U. S. tobacco growers had their most concrete reassurance to date. Imperial Tobacco Co.'s head, Lord Dulverton, who performed valiantly against the Turks at Gallipoli in 1915, told his stockholders: "Owing to the inadequacy of alternative supplies we can never hope to become independent of the American market for very long. I hope that at the appropriate moment, some action between our Government and that of the United States will be taken, relieving this very difficult position."

The long paw of war touched other U. S. businesses last week:

> A fine new Diesel tanker, the 10,044-ton Skandinavia, made fast to a New York dock. Built in Germany for Texas Corp. as part payment for pre-war U. S. crude oil, she had reached and crossed the blockaded Atlantic without adventure.

That Great Britain's North Sea patrol let her pass was not surprising. That Germany let her go was. For Allied commerce leans heavily on neutral shipping, and the Norwegian-flag Skandinavia (which will run from the Gulf to South America) will free replacements for some of the 100,000 tons of tankers the Germans have sunk to date. Probable explanation: confabs between Texas Corp.'s Board Chairman "Cap" Torkild Rieber and the German Admiralty.

> To a Belgian affiliate the United States Lines last week sold eight battered Hog Islanders, none built later than 1921, all doomed to be scrapped within two years. Price for the lot: $4,000,000, something like five times their scrap value. Of the 86 American ships put out of European service by the Neutrality Act, this left only three still unemployed.

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