§ 20. Mr. Wootton-Daviesasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what amount of food has been bought by his Department in Allied countries since the start of the war and subsequently destroyed; and what has been its value.
§ Mr. EdenThe only expenditure which can be regarded as a purchase of foodstuffs on Foreign Office account was the sum of £143,465 made available to the Government of the French Cameroons in 1941 and 1942 in order to support the single crop producers of that territory growing bananas For this sum, we might have received 26,890 metric tons of bananas but Sir, unhappily the shipping position made it impossible to lift any.