NEEDS SURVEYED

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 130, 3 June 1937, Page 13

NEEDS SURVEYED

BRITISH AGRICULTURE

An outline of an agricultural policy which, it is urged, the Government should follow is contained in the report of a special committee of the Association of British Chambers of Commerce which was appointed to consider the position of British agriculture and industry, says "The Times." The chairman of the committee was Sir Alan Garrett Anderson, M.P., and the members comprised representatives of a large number of chambers of commerce throughout the country. The report has been unanimously adopted by the Executive Council of the association.

The report states that Great Britain, by her policy of opening up agricultural areas oversea and enabling her debtors to pay in goods and services, has helped herself to sell her manufactures abroad, her population to live better and more cheaply than ever before, but has for two generations exposed her farmers and agricultural landowners to fierce competition. This competition, combined- with the increase of population and spread of towns and the steady improvement in output by agricultural workers has reduced her area of arable land and cultivated grass by two million acres, nomen employed on farms by 500,000. When other nations by subsidies or restraints enable food to be sold in Britain below cost we must, it is added, adopt methods to safeguard our farmers from unnatural competition without depriving our industry of a valuable gift. A low retail price of food has a 'double importance.- Our industry cannot afford to pay more than the world's price for its prime raw material which is the food of its workers. Farmers' here and abroad cannot afford to allow a high retail price to limit the ; consumption by whose growth and by no other agency agriculture can thrive.

These considerations, and the need to prevent an unnecessary charge for retailing, should be borne in mind both in connection with agricultural policy and in connection with statutory marketing schemes designed tc secure remuerative prices to the farmer.

By permitting the British public 10 buy world food at prices below cost, the report continues, the Government secures for United Kingdom industry a large financial gain, part of which can and should be used to prevent the unnatural cheapness of food from causing distress to our agriculture. This policy secures {or us the best of both worlds so long as we apply it with discretion to encourage and expand efficient agriculture suitable to our soil and climate. The alternative policy has secured for some foreign nations the worst of both worlds; by excluding cheap wheat, butter, and meat they have stopped their nationals both from eating enough bread, butter, and meat, and from selling exports. To maintain a healthy home market for British industry, it is important that British agriculture should be prosperous and progressive and that its wage-earners should live on a good standard relative to their neighbours in towns. The health of the nation in peace and its security in war requires that our fields should be cultivated and staffed with a vigorous rural population.

Our agricultural policy should be to keep our land fertile and in good heart as best suits the soil and climate of each farm, and the Government, within the frontier indicated, should hold itself, free to use tariffs, or levy, or quota, or subsidies, or distributive control separately or in combination, remembering always the dangers that threaten when it passes beyond the frontier and in the supposed interest of British agriculture restricts the supply or forces up the retail price of food to prices which restrict consumption.