Grain to Red China

Canada may not recognize Red China diplomatically, but it knows a good customer when it sees one. Last week Canada's Minister of Agriculture Alvin Hamilton announced the biggest one-shot grain sale in Canadian history: over the next 2 1/2 years, Communist China will buy 233.4 million bu. of wheat and barley worth $362 million. The sale brought famine-suffering Red China from nowhere to second place (barely behind Britain) among Canada's grain customers.

To swing the deal, Hamilton flew to Hong Kong, ate 14-course meals with the Communist negotiators and cruised the harbor on their yacht. He nailed it down by offering credit: 25% down and the balance in nine months in each year of the contract. Though Opposition Leader Mike Pearson delicately questioned the propriety of offering better credit terms to Peking than to friendly nations, most Canadians seemed too busy counting the goodies to make any complaints. If all went well (as Communist deals do not), Canada's recession-hurt railways would move 142,000 carloads of grain to the seacoast and 750 ships would be needed to carry it across the Pacific.

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