BRITISH AGRICULTURE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 295, 13 December 1922, Page 4

BRITISH AGRICULTURE.

The decision of the British (lovornment to appoint a Commission to conwider lessons from abroad that may lie applicable to Uritish agriculture lias much interest for us in New Zealand for two reasons. We are naturally ' interested in the condition of what has been called the greatest industry in the Motherland, and it must also strike the Xew Zealand producer that a reorganised agriculture i" Britain will mean more severe competition against liim in the British markets. To many colonials the wails about the deolinv of British agriculture are a puzzle. Why is it. it is asked, tliat the British farmer, working beside his market, in many cases on land j cheaper than colonial land, and paying I wages considerably less than colonial ! wages, cannot do lietter in competition I with producers who have to transport their produce thousands of miles? The i answer is that many factors enter into | the question, such a* Hie whole lami j system of England, with it s tenancies ' and landlords" rights, taxation, and the j consercatjeiil of the English farmer both ( in methods of agriculture and systems of distribution. British farming is afill an immense industry. According to a recent estimate by a high authority the Old Country produces twenty per cent of its t consumption of wheat, thirty per cent of fruit, forty per cent of butter, sixty per | cent of meat and eggs, seventy to eighty ', per cent of barley and poultry, ami I ninety to ninety-five per cent of oats, | milk, potatoes, and vegetables. But a t London paper remarked not so long ago I that the country was actually producing _ less food than it did before the war. ! though more than a million people were \ unemployed. 'Many farmers, especially I those who cultivate, are in a bad way. I Reformers point out that in certain Continental countries more is e-ot from i land that is no better than England's and in many cases poorer, and I hey view I with alarm the steady drain of agrietiltnral labourers to tlie cities and to tlie I Dominions. There are two sets of remedies -a*«is- I tame by the State in th? form of sub- I sidies or protection, and self-help with ! p*rha.pa some Government assistance, i Subsidies are ruled out by i.lie state of the country's finances, and the new I Government is pMgvd nut to introduce | protection. SelMwlp covers a wide range I of «<-tion. from the better use of manures lo the development of co-operation and t.M» provision of cheap capital. In these dilutions the British farmer can learn iv stood deal from foreign countries and .'.lie Dominions. Britain leads the world in stock-breeding, but there is I said lo bo a irea.rkeil difference between the bes-t BratU* *t«-k and the average. In the same country the vied of tl)0 ! same crop varies greatly, aiid it is com- I mon knowledge t-bat much more might be obtained by judicious use of ferti- ' Users. England invented, says a London ! paper, the co-operative movement that has made the fortunes of Denmark, but' Englishmen have failed to turn it to ■ their own profit. A higli authority who 1 this year addressed the British Association on the problem urged the adoption of .eo-opeirative buying; and selTing and the elimination of superfluous middlemen. The establighme-nt of a system by I which farmers coti'd obtain cli'?a.p money j j easily would mean an end of annual I tenancies; "the general acceptance of, secure tenure, if not of ownerghip," reniarks the "Manchester Guardian." 'is i I essential to agricultural reform." Here I

tb© reformer encounters liie main diffioultVt tile fact fhat the political party in power are the protectors of the landlords' interests. However, the ooniing inquiry should produce some arood. It will at least draw attention to dJTWtione in which Britain lags beihind tlie rest of the world in agpLeultiire, and though the present Government may not be Hilling to do much for the farmer, it may be succeeded before long by One Uiat is more eyrapathetic.