BRITISH PRODUCERS PROTEST.

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 55, 2 September 1927, Page 10

BRITISH PRODUCERS PROTEST.

English and Scotch farmers have generally suffered from the slump in prices in July last for home-bred mutton and lamb. Best English mutton was lOd per lb wholesale in Smithfield and English lamb 14d per lb. ■ English agriculture is greatly depressed at the present moment: There is a strong move on foot among farmers up and down the country to call for import duties against overseas meat. The National Farmers* Union, which is strongly organised'in all districts, is being made the vehicle for an appeal to this end. Such a thing would have been impossible some years ago, when free trade was the universally, accepted policy, especially in the food business, writes "The Post's" London 'correspondent, but since the war the Safeguarding of Industries Act has introduced to the nation protective legislation which is all too apt to plunge the country into further policy of the kind. The Home farmer is complaining that meat retailers in England try their best to encourage the consumption of foreign meat by charging 1 outrageous and unjustifiable prices -tot home-fed. It is alleged that these retailers get more profit out of imported meat than home-fed. Home farmers are determined to stem the inward flow of frozen mutton and lamb, as they say that until this is done prices of home-killed meat will not rise. A branch of the National Farmers' Union has passed a resolution calling for an import duty of%d per lb on all colonial, meat imported and a duty of l%d per lb on all foreign meat. This ■ recommendation will be strongly urged, but it is doubtful whether the Government, although threatened with the hostility of the important farming interest, will comply and thereby risk the hostility of the" general body of consumers.