Foreign News: Rice Up, Prices Down

The Chinese lost Hengyang (see WORLD BATTLEFRONTS), but last week they had better news than a military victory. For a bumper rice crop—in some provinces the best in 40 years—China's peasants gave thanks to Lao Tien Yieh, Old Father Heaven.

In Szechwan alone the grain yield would be at least 250,000,000 piculs (600,000,000 bushels), or 40 to 50% above last year. Kansu, Honan, and Shensi had already harvested their biggest wheat crops in 15 years. Yunnan, too, expected a bumper crop. In the great metropolitan collection depots the Government's rat-proof bins bulged with grain piled in wicker baskets twice as high as...