THE EMPIRE'S PRODUCE

Evening Star, Issue 19410, 19 November 1926, Page 14

THE EMPIRE'S PRODUCE

MARKETING BOARD'S TASKS PUBLICITY AND RESEARCH Interesting details of the work of the Empire Marketing Board were given by Mr L. S. Amery, Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, at a conference held in London recently. The board was established in accordance with a t recommendation of the Imperial Economic Committee that an “executive commission” should be formed “with the duty of conducting the movement for trade in Empire produce.” The board also advises the Secretary of State as to how the annual grant of £1,000,000 —in tho current financial year £soo,ooo—shall be spent in assisting the sale of Empire products—including home-grown agricultural produce—in Great Britain. That grant was promised by the British Government in place of certain preferences in favor of Empire-grown foodstuffs which tho Government, as a result of pledges given at tho lust election, felt unable to undertake. Mr Amery is the chairman of the board, which is an executive body, as distinct from the Imperial Economic Committee. The latter ads in a purely advisory capacity, but identity or view between the committee and the board has been secured by the fact that the personnel of the two bodies is to a -large extent the same. This arrangement was, of course, provisional, as the whole question of the work of the committee and the board is being reviewed at the Imperial Conference. Mr Amery explained that, owing to a number of reasons, the board could not be brought effectively into existence until the end of last May, but since then regular meetings had been held and a number of committees had been set up. The Imperial Economic Committee had made it clear that it looked to tho board to take a wide view of its functions, and. in endeavoring to follow this recommendation, the board, at the outset, had tried to make a general survey of the whole fie’d that lay before it, rather than to embark lightly on projects that might dissipate its energies and its funds. Attention was being directed to every 'tage of tho process of production and distribution, of which marketing in the United Kingdom was but the last step. THE ORDER OF PREFERENCE. _ [t had not been forgotten that the Empire included the home country, said Mr Amery, and, in order that the work should not become “ lop-sided," tho claims of tho homo producer were never lost sight of. The board , was carrying out the recommendation of the Imperial Economic Committee that precedence should be given in the British market for foodstuffs in the following order;—First, homo produce; second, dominion and colonial produce; and, third, foreign produce. There were two main principles by which Empire marketing could bo helped; the first was publicity, and the other was research (including both scientific research and economic investigation). In regard to the former, it was amazing to find how great an effect Wembley had had on tho demand for Empire goods throughout tho country. This work must be followed up. Two main committees had been formed in connection with publicity and research. The Publicity Committee included representative men in the world of advertising, the Press, and commerce. The purpose of the hoard’s publicity was twofold. It sought to bring home to every household in the United Kingdom, and to the traders by whom they were sunnlied, the significance and advantages of Empire sources of production.

The hoard aimed also at letting the producer oversea know what was being done in Britain to assist him in finding an adeonato and profitable market for his produce. For some months, at any rate, the publicity efforts of the board would be directed chiefly to making the Empire and its economic aspects become alive to the public, and in preparing a background against which more, specific efforts to advance the sale of_ Empire produce would bo thrown into relief. “FOLLOWING UP WEMBLEY.”

In regard to general Press publicity a special officer had now been appointed to supply information to the newspapers. As to advertisements, a contract had been made with a leading firm of advertising agents for an experimental campaign of newspaper advertisement, to begin before the end of October. The board had commissioned a number of_ the best poster artists to design a series of large special posters. It was proposed to show a number of these posters to the dominion Prime Ministers at the Imperial Conference, but the general poster campaign throughout the country would not be begun until next year. In exhibition work much could he dono in the way of “following up Wembley." It was, hoped to make available to the schools a better map of the Empire, and the regular issue to schools of a bulletin on Empire subjects was being considered. On the research side, a grant' of £IO,OOO had been allocated for the study of the mineral contents of natural pastures, and it was hoped to discover the causes which, in various parts of the Empire, underlie the persistent symptoms of malnutrition among flocks and herds. Good work had already been done at the Rowett Institute, Aberdeen, and at the Onderstepoort Station in South Africa. Research into this problem had been extended to Kenya, and would be further extended to Australia, Southern Rhodesia, and, it was hoped, Palestine. A grant of £21,000 had been promised to the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture, Trinidad, on condition that a similar sum would be provided by certain cotton interests in the United Kingdom That sum had now been forthcoming. Steps were being taken to reopen the Amani ’lnstitute, Tanganyika, and to convert it into a first-class institution. COLD STORAGE EXPERIMENTS. The problems of cold storage were most important, Mr Amery continued, and a sum not exceeding £25,000 had been promised to the Low Temperature Research Station, Cambridge, in respect of buildings and equipment, and an annual maintenance contribution of £5,000 for five years. The board was also considering favorably the establishment of a cold storage experimental station at East Mating. A capital sum of £15,000 and an annual maintenance grant of £4,000 for five years had been offered to the Management Committee of the Imperial Bureau of Entomology for the establishment, under caieful safeguards, of a laboratory for tbo breeding and distribution to the dominions and colonics of beneficial parasites to control and destroy insect pests. It had been calculated that 10 per cent, of the world’s crops were destroyed by insect pests. On the economic side, £40,000 a year for five years had been promised to the Ministry of Agriculture for prosecuting further investigations into the methods of marketing home-grown produce in Great Britain and for educating home producers as to the possibilities of improvement. A grant of £1,200 for the Jamaica Producers’ Association had been approved. The Imperial Economic Committee recommended that the cost of transporting pedigree cattle, sheep, and swine from the United Kingdom to other parts of the Empire might bo met from the Empire marketing grant. The hoard had approved of this recommendation in principle, and was awaiting a scheme to give effect to it. Mr Amery added that about £250,000 of the £500,000 grants for the work of the hoard this year had been allocated or,promised for research and publicity-