FARMING FUTURE

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 79, 30 September 1933, Page 14

FARMING FUTURE

OUR BRITISH MARKETS

LORD BLEDISLOE'S SURVEY

-FALLACIES CORRECTED

An interesting and hopeful survey of the farming industry was made by his Excellency Lord Bledisloe in an address delivered at the annual dinner of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce last night. Commercial husbandry appeared (said his Excellency), although the price barometer was hopefully rising, to be threatened, as in other countries less favoured by Nature, with competitive strangulation and the alleged menace of over-production, or "as I should prefer to call it, maldistribution, owing to'transient factors of which the most dominant are international war debts, the instability of currency standards, and the non-availabil-ity of tho monetary medium of commodity exchange. Whatever may be ;|the case with factory output, I find it difficult to justify the term 'overproduction' as applied to primary products, when at least half the population of the world are underfed aud underclothed. Economies are unfortunately in these- days so closely intertwined with politics that I hesitate to speak of the problem in terms of any particular commodity. But at least 1 should like, with a lifelong acquaintance with British agriculture and British markets, to remove some current misapprehensions. LITTLE TO FEAR. "Tho first is the likelihood, under normal conditions (apart entirely from any 'question of Imperial preference) of non-absorption by the British market at a remunerative price of high, grade New Zealand land output, such, for instance, as the best of your Canterbury lamb or of your dairy produce. This Dominion has but little to fear so long as she takes due care, as her export boards are striving to do, that her primary exports shall not be aggregated with the relatively inferior products of other competing countries and that they shall be of uniformly high quality and of the exact description that British consumers require. "If, for instance, British housewivessought in the shops of the Homeland small joints of butcher's meat from early matured animals, chilled beef (assuming that it can be transported free from moulds,, and this seemed to have been satisfactorily demonstrated) in preference to frozen beef, lean rather than fat bacon, easily spread full-flav-oured butter, cheese free from holesor discoloration, or apples of a certain size or variety, they should try, with the help of the scientists, to satisfy their fastidious tastes, even if they did not share them. / "If you do, Britain's market door will be flung as wide open to you as Ever before. A WIDELY CIRCULATED FALLACY. "And this leads me to mention another widely circulated fallacy induced by certain features of Britain's recent economic policy, viz., that she is aiming at being self-contained in her food supply, with consequent bankruptcy to this Dominion and its primary producers. Such a supposition would be deemed farcical in Britain. -Bier deep anxiety at present is lest her farmers may bo ruined by temporary lack of absorptive capacity through want of purchasing power on the part of her greatly depressed urban proletariat. Ignorance, moreover, sometimes curtails the due consumption of essential foods. Take milk, for instance. There would be no talk of a quota being imposed on imported milk products, at least on those of good quality, if the average Briton drank the full quota of liquid milk deemed essential to physical well-being. But as long as he drinks per head of population half that of the American, one-third that of the Scandinavian, and one-fourth that of the Swiss, saturation point is reached at an abnormally early stage. The physical decadence of tho British nation is in no small measure due to malnutrition through wholly inadequate consumption by tho children of the poor ot Nature's most complete food and most effective disease-resister —milk. Similarly inimical to human well-being is the atteriiptcd supersession in a co.d damp climate of woollen clothing by inferior substitutes. But quite apart from these limitations of commodity absorption arising from ignorance, prejudice, or transient fashion, there is no occasion whatever for alarm. Under normal conditions Britain supplies her immense and growing population from her own farm area (which is ever shrinking With the encroachment ot her cities) 17 per cent, of her breadstuffs, 43 per cent, of her butcher s meat, 10 per cent, of her butter 21 per cent, of her cheese, 73 per cent, of her poultry, 65 per cent, of her eggs (which, although large, still leaves 2 400,000,000 to be provided from outside), 14 per cent, of her bacon and hams and 17 per cent. of. her fresh fruit Given reasonable preference over foreign supplies and reasonable; protection agiynst the products of sweated labour, there is surely ample scope for this Dominion, in providing her due 'hare of the balance, on the recovery of Britain's industrial prosperity and purchasing capacity, to secure a good ivelihood for all her more enlightened and businesslike farmers. Reciprocal tialing with the Old Land will render £r continued custom all the more certain and secure. FOREIGN COUNTRIES NOT FAVOURED. "Another misconception, akin to the last, is that Britain, in the supp y of ler food requirements, is, in spite of the Ottawa Agreements, inclined to favour foreign countries at the expense of the Dominions. This is the reverse of the truth, as all her new trade agreements, if carefully scrutinised will abundantly demonstrate. But a little patience is "needed for the full development of her- revised, trade programme. Britain, with her immense overseas trade connections in many foreign countries, cannot by a stroke of the pen entirely deflect the current of her international commodity exchange without bringing, disaster upon, her wKolo industrial fabric, especially it the Dominions are unable for a time to augment their custom with her to the extent that she may lose it in other directions. This difficulty is well illustrated by the fact that the amount of British capital invested in Argentina is estimated at £650,000,000 compared with £525,000,000 in Canada, £494,000,000 in Australia, £224,000,000 in South Africa, aud £123,000,000 in New Zealand. Tho silken cord of Imperial sentiment is drawing ever closer together the traders of the British Empire, as official statistics clearly show. To put too great and sudden a strain upon -it is to run the risk of snapping it altogether. It is asserted in. Holy Writ that 'where your treasure is thero will your heart be also,' and no one can deny that in a conflict (whether individual or national) between sentiment and self-interest, and still more between sentiment and solvency, sentiment is unlikely to prevail. But "the identity of location of heart and treasure-is surely a laudable objective, although it be slow in its realisation—an objective whose motto would be 'Where your heart is Imperi-

ally, thero your treasure should be perpetually augmented,' without appreciable detriment to existing and profitable commercial attachments.' SCIENCE AND STATESMANSHIP. His Excellency reviewed the contribution of science to production- and stated that one of tho main tasks of the world's great statesmen in the future would bo to make mankind receptive to scientific teaching and so to modify the political and economic syslems of theVorld as to enablitsin habitants to en.ioy to the full tl e> ncu fruits of .scientific endeavour. lh°s° who seek to stifle the pursuit of science o>• it-f applications within their own national borders are gratuitously clogSXto rtttrip 8 Kiln tho race for %T? xT^San °the epep°r Cof sientifil and Industrial Eefca*ch the Cawthron Institute and Lhicota and Masscy Agricu tural Co, w e ? aro doing untold service, to the faming community, which is resulting In money value at least thirty times Ihat expended on their invaluable act - vties With the regretted disappearance of the Empire Marketing Board the work which it has inaugurated and lamely financed must on no account be allowed to lapse through miscalled economy. Important as is the application of the "suits of scientific research to productive processes, even more important is the scientific outlook in dealing with Imperial or world pioblem's." RELATIONSHIP TO THE STATE. His Excellency spoke of the necessity for strengthening the foundations of the industrial structure, and guarding against the greatest peril ol wild speculation in land values whether in tSwn or country. "One of the great problems of the day in. all civilised Entries (he broceeded) is the proper relation between the individual and the State in the field of industry and commerce. A friendly concordat between the two may prove under modern conditions to be the wisest solution The universal stultification ot industry has led to the strange spectacle in all the great countries of the world of normally unshackled individual enterprise being subjected to drastic Government control or (as in Britain) accepting Government guidance or organisation as the price of definite financial assistance. So-called bureaucratic control no doubt has its drawbacks and limitations, but at least it may be said that in Great Britain it is buttressed by a larger measure of practical knowledge and experience than could have been claimed for it even a decade ago, and this tends to inspire greater confidence among those who are brought within its ambit. Under such circumstances as I have mdi-, cated the old fundamental economic laws of supply and demand,! although operating cosmically, in the background, are so obscured by human manipulation as to appear inapplicable to modern human activities. Such a condition, if it is not to eventuate in economic chaos or chronic productive insecurity, would seem to demand hunian wisdom, foresight, co-operation, and integrity to a degree unprecedented in the annals of history. I am not without hope that these requisites of ordered progress will be forthcoming on the initiative of our Mother Country. But that initiative will need for its full efficacy and fruition not merely the sympathy, but also the confident support, of her virile grown^ip family overseas. Unfettered autonomy, even if unsought, involves a corresponding measure of Imperial and international responsibility. It used to be said that 'What Lancashire thinks today England thinks tomorrow,' and in the old laissez-faire days there was more than a grain of truth in it. With even greater accuracy it may nowadays be asserted that 'What-Britain thinks today the world will think tomorrow' But Britain as a separate economic entity •is rapidly giving place to the ; British Commonwealth of Nations, and the economic policy of tho world (and consequentially the forward march of civilisation) is likely to bo conditioned to an ever-increasing extent by the economic wisdom of the oversea Dominions of the British Commonwealth and their community of outlook with tho wise and ever-generous old mother who gave them birth. This community of outlook must ever be fostered by mutual trustfulness on the part of mother and daughter and a constant recognition by each of the difficulties which beset the path of the other."