DAIRYING IN BRITAIN

Evening Post, Volume c, Issue 54, 5 March 1934, Page 9

DAIRYING IN BRITAIN

QUESTION" OF QUOTA

SUBSIDY PREFERRED

LONDON, March 2. . The scheme of the Minister of Agriculture, Mr. AValter Elliot, of subsidising the dairy industry has aroused considerable criticism both from thosa approving the general lines of his policy for the reorganisation of agriculture and those who find in straightforward tariffs and the exclusion of foreign imports an easy way to prosperity. "The Statist" says:—"The latter class of critics ignore the fact that so long as the Dominions' butter/ and cheese enter duty free the dairying industry has little chance.to gain from an increase in duty on foreign butter and cheese. Even if the Dominions agree to curtail their exports of butter, which they show nosinclination to do, no material relief can be obtained from Danish competition, for the AngloDanish trade agreement binds Britain to buy a minimum of 2,300,000cwt of Danish butter yearly. "At present there can be no question of regulating supplies of dairy produce by quota and increased tariffs on foreign imports would be insufficient to ensure our dairy farmers better returns. Mr. Elliot's choice of measures to assist them is therefore restricted, and it is difficult to see what alternative course to a subsidy could have been taken." The -Minister of Agriculture announced in thij House of Commons on February 22 that the Government proposed for two years begiuning on April 1 next that tbe Milk Marketing Board should be guaranteed by means of Exchequer advances a minimum price of od a gallon in the summer, from April to September, and 6d a gallon in the winter, in respect of milk manufactured in factories in Great Britain. The advances. were estimated to amount to from £1,500,000 to £1,750,000 in the first year. A sum of £750,000 spread over four years would bo provided for a purer milk supply campaign. He explained that there was in Britain a surplus milk supply amounting to 20 per.cent, in the winter and 40 per cent, in the spring and summer over liquid' requirements, which must find a market in manufactured form such as butter and cheese. The grant would be contingent on the submission of an approved programme by the Milk Marketing Board containing, inter alia, the supply of milk to schools at reduced rates.