IN FRONT LINE

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 95, 18 October 1940, Page 7

IN FRONT LINE

FARMERS OF BRITAIN

ANSWER TO DUTY'S CALL

PREMIER'S LETTER

(British OfflclaJ Wireless.) ; (Received October 18, 11 a.m.) j RUGBY, October 17. ' Mr. Churchill, in a letter to thej president of the National Farmers'! Union in reference to correspondence | on the subject of agricultural prices, j states that the matter has had his j serious consideration. j

"I need not tell you," said .the Prime Minister, "that the food production of our country is at this hour of supreme crisis one of the vital factors in our ability to resist and overcome a formidable enemy. We rely on the farmers. We depend on the efforts they put forth in the fields of Britain. I know that we can do this with complete confidence in their toil, ingenuity, and readiness to accept hardship in a grave emergency affecting all our people.

"Price levels have been- fixed for the purpose of securing an increase in types of production and a decline in others. They take their place in a general plan to meet the exceptional needs of the war. In some cases they may impose burdens. In others there may even be a call for the sacrifice of personal interest. But taken as a whole the price structure is believed to reconcile just treatment for the producer with the wide requirements of the nation. Even if this were not so, a call to duty would still go out to the farms as it does to the factories, and I know it would be answered by a stern resolve to make the best of the expedients at hand, to labour, strive, and achieve, with no thought of obstacles and no heed of difficulties. Only if we devote our lives and energies wholly to the tasks of the war can we survive the ordeal and gain the victory which will save our people from intolerable servitude, and in this service the farming community—the home through centuries of bold, independent men—is called on to play a vital part. Today th.-; farms of Britain are in the front line of freedom."