NOTES AND COMMENTS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 59, Issue 128, 13 March 1939, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS

. TRAVELLING STATESMEN,

It is rather startling to realise that the Prime. Minister’s visit .to Italy was his fifth journey; to the Continent in about four months, writes “Scrutator” in the “Sunday Times.” Aly memory is none too certain on the point, but I cannot recall Lord Baldwin ever going anywhere abroad during his Premiership except for his annual holiday to Aix-les-Bains. It is-true that lie w r ent to the Ottawa Conference, 'but Mr AlacDonald was the head of the Government at that time. Air MacDonald held a record as a peregrinating Prime Minister which is not likely to be eclipsed. In fact, so frequent did his foreign excursions become, that once, when lie was returning to this country, a lively, if somewhat irreverent morn : ing newspaper published the information under the heading: “MacDonald to Visit England.”

BRITISH FARMING POLICY.

There is no lack of public* sympathy for the plight of the farmer, says the “Daily Telegraph” in a review of British agricultural policy just before the recent Cabinet changes. The farmers themselves, moreover, are aware that the Governmnt thoroughly understands their distresses and has not spared itself in its efforts to help them. The basic problem remains that of how to provide the farmer and his labourer with the proper remuneration due to them without endangering the already insufficient nutritional standards of large sections of the population. There is little doubt that the Government’s policy hitherto has been open to the legitimate criticism of being too piecemeal, a defect which the review now being ■ made will presumably seek to remedy. On the other side of the picture, it would he uiir fortunate if the impression were left that the farmer was throwing himself too exclusively on Government assistance. The new and early legislation which Air Chamberlain has promised will, it may be hoped, be so contrived as to allay anxiety on oth scores.