IN BRITAIN TODAY 50,000 Acres Of Farmland Disappearing Every Year

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32216, 7 February 1970, Page 17

IN BRITAIN TODAY 50,000 Acres Of Farmland Disappearing Every Year

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter Copyright. Cable News Digest) LONDON. Britain is losing her farmland at the rate of something like 50,000 acres a year because of urban and industrial development, according to an official of a Londonbased Australian organisation which hopes that farmers displaced by the spread of houses and factories will be able to transplant themselves in Australia.

Overseas Farmers Co-oper-ative Federations, Ltd, which represents major Australian farming interests in the United Kingdom, is offering an advisory service to British farmers who are losing their land to new towns, airports and roads. An official of the co-opera-

tive, Mr Alan Rogers, said this week: “Many farmers in Britain are now faced with the problem of being uprooted and having to start afresh elsewhere. We feel that this is an opportunity for them to re-establish themselves in settled properties in eastern states of Australia, and we offer our help to anyone who may want to take up farming in Australia. “It is pure coincidence that we are launching our service at a time when there is general unrest in British farming. “Our aim is to place ourselves at strategic points, such as the perimeters of new towns or highway developments, where the farmer, being displaced from his land, can be offered immediate advice.

“This is simply an advisory service and, at the moment, only in the experimental stage, but it will be linked with Australian banking or-

ganisations, and with the] blessing of the Australian migration authorities. “Our particular interest is to provide interested farmers with information and advice about Australia, and farming prospects there. “We could then refer the British farmer to the individual farming organisation in Australia to which his needs are most suited. “We feel that a fair proportion of the farmers losing their land are young men who don’t want to give up farming, and if only two of them expressed interest in Australian farming and could be helped—then our service has been worth while.” The co-operative has opened its pilot scheme around the Milton Keynes area of North Buckinghamshire, where its representatives are already interviewing farmers. There, about 100 farmers will be affected by new town developments obliterating 22,500 acres of farmland. The chairman of the new town steering committee of the National Farmers Union is reported in the “Evening

News” to have welcomed the scheme. “At the rate Britain Is losing farmland, it will make it particularly hard for tenant farmers to begin again,” he said. “The problems of farming in Britain will get worse, so the new towns could be a blessing in disguise for the younger men, forcing them into starting again in an expanding country such as Australia.”

Farmers’ Show Of Strength

Thousands of farmers converged on the Ministry of Agriculture offices in London this week to give moral support to their leaders, who were in Westminster to see how much financial help they could wheedle out of the Government this year. Inside the building it was officially the annual Price Review negotiations; outside it was a show of militancy by about 4000 ruddy-faced farmers, some with the mud of the fields still on their boots, and many with their wives—their unpaid bookkeepers and Government form-fillers. It was a dignified demonstration compared with those held in the provinces, where farm animals, tractors and equipment have blocked the main streets of many cities and towns in recent weeks. In London there were neither cattle nor tractors, just a bustling crowd of jovial men, shouting slogans and waving placards in support of their claim that, as Britain's main providers of food, they deserve more reward for their labours through increased Government subsidies. They want a review which would bring the industry an income of £6som, an increase of £l4lm on last year’s estimated income. They also want, for the next three years, to be given the fruits of their increased productivity, estimated in Price Review terms at £3om, and to be covered for increased costs, which have been calculated at £6om, the largest item having been higher wages for farm workers. The slogans the farmers carried on their march in London ranged from faith—- " Why import it, when we can grow it?”—to a threat—“ Cash or else.” At one stage, when the road outside the Ministry was completely blocked, police reinforcements, some of them mounted, were called in to clear a way for traffic. They were greeted with a new slogan: “More pay for the police.” The only incident was when four hefty farmers lifted a car bodily off the ground, “just to show our strength.” The farmers’ leader, Mr Henry Plumb, who, only last Friday, ousted Sir Gwilym Williams from the presidency of their union because he was not regarded as sufficiently militant, was given a tremendous cheer. From the steps of the Ministry, Mr Plumb told them: "This is one of the most critical reviews we have ever been involved in—critical not only for agriculture, but for the British nation. If the housewife has to buy food from abroad it will be jolly expensive.”

Callaghan Under Fire

A merry row is continuing in Britain over alleged re marks by the Home Secretarj (Mr Callaghan), himself t farmer, on the viable size ol a dairy herd Mr Callaghan is reported to have told a woman who confronted him at a rowdy meeting he had with farmer; last week-end that milk should come from larger dairy herds than hers. She has 51 cows in milk. Farmers angrily retorted on Monday that Mr Callaghan should be made to say if he was getting a fair return on capital at his own farm, to which Ministry of Agriculture officials have tried to reply that (a) Mr Callaghan was not correctly reported, and (b) he mainly farms beef. Mr Callaghan is said to have fired his remark at Mrs Miriam Mossman, the wife of a Welsh farmer who milks his 50-odd cows on 60 acres. Hi; alleged remark, or the most common version of it, was: “Go home and tell your husband that milk should come from bigger herds than your. Go home and tell him that he should cease to slavedrive you.” This is the version Mrs Mossman supports, according to a former New Zealand journalist, Michael Lake, writing in the “Guardian." Mr Lake says that another version was: “Go home and tell your husband not to be a fool. Milk should come from larger herds than yours.” Mrs Mossman is furious, and has reported the Minister’s alleged remark to the Milk Marketing Board, which last year declared her farm to be a highly efficient unit, well stocked and with a good clean yield. Mr Mossman says that his real worry is that Mr Callaghan’s remark might indicate a Government plan to wipe out smaller dairy farms, even those, like his, which had proved to be efficient. Mr John James, a leading militant, has sprung to the i defence of the Mossmans, and [added fuel to the fire by deI manding figures on the viability of Mr Callaghan’s farm. I Ministry officials say that the | Home Secretary farms beef,

and that, only as a sideline to his major activity, politics. The newly-elected president of the National Farmers’ Union, Mr Henry Plumb, has also entered the fray. “I think Mr Callaghan’s remark was quiet irresponsible,” he said. “In fact, 70 per cent of the dairy herds in this country are below 50 cows, and they are very efficient.”

The Carmarthenshire branch of the N.F.U. has asked Mr Wilson in a strongly-worded letter to make an immediate declaration of policy on the future of small and mediumsized farms.

The union’s county secretary (Mr Harry Lloyd) said that Mr Callaghan’s alleged remark had caused widespread alarm among the 3000 farmers in West Wales who had dairy herds of less than 50 cows.

Three-quarters of the milk from the district came from these smaller herds, which had an unequalled and improving record of efficiency, he said.

Farrago Of Omissions When the late Sir Winston Churchill ordered an inquiry into the circumstances that allowed the German warships Gneisenau, Scharnhorst and Prinz Eugen to make the dash up the English Channel from Brest to Germany in February, 1942, his real object was to whitewash the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force, and help to restore confidence in his Government.

This is alleged by John Deane Potter in his new book, “Fiasco,” writes Basil Gingell of "The Times.”

The judicial inquiry, the first ever held into the conduct of a battle, was presided over by Mr Justice Bucknill, who sat with Air Chief Marshal Sir Edgar Ludlow-Hewitt and Vice-Admiral Sir Hugh Binney. They sat for 12 days, and their report reached the Prime Minister at the beginning of March. Although it was said to be a complete answer to any carping criticism, not even members of Parliament were allowed to have more than minor information on the facts.

It was not until four years later that the report was tabled, and even then the details were not sensational. “The determined smokescreen made sure that no details of the mishandling of the German break-out reached even the peace-time public,” Mr Potter alleges. "The official account contains more misinformation and downright rubbish than most Government documents. It is difficult to believe that some of the facts were deliberately falsified even in such a perilous time as this mid-war period, but it is such a farrago of omissions and evasions that the tribunal must have skimped its inquiries.” The faint note of criticism contained in the report of the inquiry Mr Potter sums up as “a collector’s piece of officialese and double-talk,” and he goes on: “Nearly 700 fighters .and bombers—the entire force at the disposal of the R.A.F.— had been flung into the battle without success because they were too late and completely unco-ordinated.

“Thirteen young Fleet Airarm pilots had been sent uselessly to their death. "Twenty - seven young sailors had been killed and 18 seriously wounded aboard the destroyer Worcester when she took on a German battleship ind cruiser single-handed—? >iece of pitiful heroism which reed never have happened if the Navy had brought in bigger ships.

“Security was so rigid that hundreds of other young R.A.F. pilots took off with no dea what they were looking for.

“The unpalatable truth which Churchill dared not reveal to the angry and disturbed British public was that ;ome of his service chiefs had proved themselves tragi■;ally incompetent.” The whole affair produced a crisis of confidence in Churchill’s Government. In a leading article at that time, “The Times” said that the Germans had accomplished what the Spanish Armada could not, and it added: “Nothing more mortifying to the pride of our sea power has happened in home waters since the seventeenth century”. The Germans had translations of “The Times” editorial circulated among their naval staffs in Wilhelmshaven, Kiel and Wolf’s Lair, East Prussia. Cacophony

The 8.8. C. Northern Orchestra, in rehearsal in Manchester, sounded as if all its members were playing different tunes. It sounded awful. But because they were rehearsing for the first time one of those discordant contemporary symphonies, no-one worried. The music, the composer had said, was supposed to be: “A jagged opening, leading to a movement of mystical tranquillity, returning to the opening theme.” It took almost four unbearable hours before the orchestra realised the unharmonic truth.

Its members were playing different pieces of music. Finally, the rehearsal of Symphonic Study No. 2, which was to have its world premiere on Radio 3 a few days later, had to be abandoned. Instead, the orchestra played a piece by Wagner. The composer of the nightmare symphony, Paul Patter-

son, aged 22, explained the mix-up as “an office mistake.” “The conductor was sent the original score while the orchestra received revised versions of the music,” he said.

European Security The Prime Minister has expressed Britain’s doubts about the wisdom of holding a European security conference unless it is so well prepared that it does not become a slogan-shouting match. Mr Wilson told questioners in the House of Commons that he had discussed fully the Soviet Union’s proposal for such a conference in his recent talks with President Nixon in Washington. “The British Government's view,” he said, “is that a conference would be useful if it is well prepared and if it covers all relevant questions concerning European security. “It should not be just a matter of shouting slogans at one another, and we do not feel that the present proposal deals adequately with it.” Mr Wilson also said that an international agreement on the use of chemical and bacteriological weapons had not been mentioned in his discussions with the American leader.