AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18901, 17 January 1927, Page 13

AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE.

TO THE EDITOB OS" THE PHESS. Sir,—Your prompt exposure in your leading article to-day of the proposed compact between the Farmers' Union and the Industrial Association, with the object, no doubt, of coercing the Government with a revision of the tariff to afford higher protective duties for industries which, owing'to inefficient management, or out-of-date machinery,' are unable to competo in the open market with rivals on tho present favourable Customs basis, is timely and commendable. It is significant that the proposal should emanate from the president of that Association, and if the farmers should be so unwary or ill-advised as to enter into such an unholy allianco with those secondary industrialists it will serve thorn right if they find their agricultural ..machinery from overseas carrying an additional burden to meet that extra taxation. The support of the industrialists referred to may be dearly purchased in such a combine which has hitherto been shunned by the primary producers. But the bait may seem too alluring as a prospect of getting more protection against the wheat-growers and millers of Australia, unless the farmers show inoro vision and sense.

Better far they should go out of wheat-growing for a time and adopt some other form of agriculture such as sugar-beet growing, which has become such a successful industry iu Canada (that great wheat-growing land) and promises to revolutionise farming in England, till the Government realise tho necessity of adequately encouraging tho growth of sufficient grain for the requirements of the Dominion. But what can such protection as the secondary industrialists advocate lead to, beyond tbo bolstering up of an artificial rate of Wages and standard of living—a false basis of honest living—for a certain class which must inevitably react on tiro cost of living all round, for so tho vicious circle must continue to revolve—Yours, etc., AGKICOLA. January 14th.