The Press TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1934. The Commission of Agriculture

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21308, 30 October 1934, Page 10

The Press TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1934. The Commission of Agriculture

As we said a few days ago, it is frightening merely to enumerate the visible and latent powers of the Executive Commission of Agriculture, the creation of which is the chief purpose of the bill now be fore the House; and it is impossible to think of their being fully or even largely exploited without rebelling against the implications of an industrial control so extensive and penetrating. But the vision is probably much more oppressive than the working of the scheme will be. There are several reasons to believe this. The Prime Minister, Mr Coates, and Mr Macmillan yesterday gave a deputation certain assurances, the general ellect of which was that it is not the Government's policy to set the commission up over the dairy industry with a whip, but to secure their co-operation. But there are, without this, signs in the bill itself that between the abstract powers of the commission snd its intended procedure there is a considerable difference. For instance, although the bill makes it possible .for the statutory and other powers of every produce board in the country to be transferred to the commission, it does not appear to be intended to apply this provision even to the dairy industry; for the Dairy Board can hardly be worth reconstructing if it is not to be active. A further sign that the commission is intended in practice to make limited and moderate use of its armoury appears in the fact that, while it is required to recommend regulations for the c'-~trol of every primary industry, the regulating of the dairy industry alone is specifically provided for and directed; and the safeguarding clauses which bring regulations under parliamentary review, and terminate them if they are not statutorily confirmed, should not 'be overlooked. In other

words, the commission is set up, nominally to superintend the full range of primary production, actually to concentrate upon the dairy industry, though what is done in it may affect other industries and necessitate action there accordingly. Again, the commission is given extraordinarily wide and full authority; but it is too soon to say that it is meant to be exerted and will be exerted, with the weight of every word of every clause behind it. But it is not too soon to make it clear to the Government that statutes which create immense and almost arbitrary powers are distrusted and rightly distrusted, because experience has proved that such powers are always, in the end, abused. It is not too soon to make it clear to the Government that the existence of these powers, which the title of the bill describes as being taken for an " emergency, will not be indefinitely tolerated, and that they must be modified or removed as the emergency becomes less acute or disappears. Finally, it ought to be made clear, not only to the Government but by the Government, thst th.6 commission s. immediate task in the dairy industry must fix the extent of its present activity. In the problem of quotas and tariffs and in the regulation and reorganisation of dairying there are difficulties enough for it to conquer. By its methods as much as by the degree of its success in this task it will be possible, during the next six months, to estimate the merits of the Government's experiment; but it can have none of any lasting value unless it has that of consistent restraint. It will be the commission's duty to show that the ruling principle of an immodeiate measure is moderation.