Herbert Hoover to Lord Reading Daniel Isaacs

1HS
His Excellency
Lord Reading,
British Embassy, City.

With respect to wheat for March, we will, in the course of today or tomorrow, pass to the Railway Administration the location of 5,000,000 bushels of wheat 125,000 tons in the Pacific Northwest, and are asking them to undertake its transportation to the Gulf for March loading. This, together with the 300,000 tons of flour arranged for subject to the movement of certain wheat to the mills is, I feel, all that we can do on the wheat line at the moment and this involves some bread shortage in this country. Our Grain Division have great hopes of the arrangements made for buying of corn in the terminal markets. They feel that it should be possible to buy up to 15,000,000 bushels of corn for March loading, or, say 400,000 tons, if present railway movement maintains. This of course will also be accomplished with a great deal of jeopardy to the domestic trade, but it is a risk we will take. If these totals are accomplished it will, according to Mr. Robson's letter of February 20th, give a total of 1,285,000 tons or a margin of safety of 185,000 tons.

Yours faithfully,

Herbert Hoover