THE FLIGHT FROM IMPORTS

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 95, 23 April 1934, Page 8

THE FLIGHT FROM IMPORTS

As each of the world's great foodimporting countries retired more and more behind closed doors, a point was reached at which food surpluses, and many raw material surpluses,were concentrated on the British market. The- progress of this concentration is shown by the estimates that Britain takes the following percentages of the world's exports: Mutton and lamb, 96 per cent.; bacon, 94 per cent.; butter, 70 per cent.; cheese, about 50 per cent. Britain came to the point that she could be fed almost entirely from oversea, at the cost of ruin of her rural industries, and with (no guarantee of a foreign market for the manufactures which her industrial population, fed on cheap imported

food, could produce; or, alternatively, she could take steps to protect her rural industry, and Use her imports as a bargaining weapon with which to open markets for her manufactured exports. Now that the latter policy has been adopted, the percentages stated above cannot conlinue. That is clear, but what is not clear is ihe percentage lo which home production in the various categories will increase. Without a planned home production, the balance remaining for imports is uncertain; and the controlling of home production is much more difficult than the restricting of imports. Some figures of .assisted- wheat production are available, and they indicate that in 1933 British wheat production was about 39 per cent, above the 1931 production, but still not quite up to pre-War yearly average. A diversification of dairying in New Zealand could increase the meat exports, but here again enters the factor of whether the rising British production is controllable. Most of the British marketing and control schemes are in their infancy. They will build up their case as they go along.