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be assisted to achieve. He therefore submitted a draft resolution which called upon the Economic and Social Council to give special consideration to the means by which these objectives might be realized. The Cuban delegate stressed the social problem of ensuring that food-supplies were available to all persons in a community. To this end he considered Governments should abolish or, at any rate, reduce taxes on foodstuffs, particularly on essential elements of human diet. He introduced a resolution incorporating this view and requesting the Economic and Social Council, in co-operation with the specialized agencies, to submit to the next General Assembly proposals fof falsing general standards of nutrition. After the representative of the Food and Agriculture Organization had outlined the measures which his and other specialized agencies had taken under the general direction of the Economic and Social Council, several representatives expressed the view that these bodies should be left to continue their existing programmes. However, the majority of the Committee considered that some action was required of the Assembly. The Committee experienced some difficulty in framing a generally acceptable resolution as a result of the different reasons given for the current food crisis— e.g., excessive consumption taxes ; obsolete land tenure ; inequitable distribution of national income and ownership ; the activities of merchants and speculators ; unstable prices for primary products ; the inadequacy of storage and marketing facilities ; and the difficulty which underdeveloped countries experience in securing sufficient financial assistance to embark upon large-scale mechanization of industry, both primary and secondary. In addition, some members, notably the representative of Argentina, stated that countries exporting primary produce could not be expected to enter into commitments to limit agricultural prices so long as industrial countries remained free to determine the prices of manufactured goods. An informal committee was set up to draft a resolution acceptable to those who had moved resolutions or amendments. The resulting resolution was not in all its paragraphs acceptable to New Zealand or to the United Kingdom, who were members of the drafting committee. Finally, the Committee by 22 votes to 7 (including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States), with 11 abstentions, adopted a resolution which recited the various factors contributing to the world food shortage and asked member States to attempt to avoid food losses arising from wastage or other causes and to eliminate unreasonable profits of middlemen and speculators ; the Economic and Social Council, together with the Food and Agriculture

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