AGRICULTURE IN BRITAIN

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25310, 9 October 1947, Page 7

AGRICULTURE IN BRITAIN

MINISTER’S DEFENCE OF EXPANSION (Special Correspondent NZ.P.A.) (Rec. 10 p.m.) LONDON, October S. A reply to critics who have asserted that Britain’s agricultural expansion is economically unsound and that the cost cannot be afforded permanently by the country, was made Dy the Minister of Agriculture (Mr Tom Williams), in an address. Denying that the Government’s fouryear plan was a panic measure taken in a moment of crisis, he said that the rising standards of food consumption in the world as a whole and the fundamental alteration in the production position, especially in the Far East, made it unlikely that Britain would ever again be offered large surpluses of food at cut prices. Only at her peril should she rely on such surpluses being available, and neglect agriculture at home. Britain had to provide, too, for feeding a larger population than before the war, and for feeding it better. “Nobody, least of all the Government wants rationing to continue a day longer than is necessary, but it must continue while there is a large potential demand unsatisfied—a demand created by the redistribution of income,” he said. "We must budget not for the dietary standard of 1938 but for something very much higher.” Substitutes for Imports Mr Williams said that when Britain had achieved her target, she would have replaced, by £202.000.000 worth of home production at post-war prices, food which she had obtained from overseas before the war, but for which she could no longer afford to pay. Commenting on the statement that it was unlikely that Britain would ever again be offered large surpluses of food at cut prices, the “Manchester Guardian” asked: “Does Mr Williams realise What this astonishing statement implies? Are our industries so devoid of specialised skill that it will never again pay other countries to grow extra food for us rather than make for themselves goods which we produce most economically? And if so, is it not absurd to speak in the same breath ©f feeding, our people better? “H o ® B -.** l ® Minister of Economic Affairs (Sir Stafford Cripps) agree that the export drive is doomed to failure? And does not the Food and Agriculture Organisation anticipate a world surplus of unsaleable food within a lew years? The unification of Cabinet responsibility for economic planning has evidently not yet begun.”