SOCIALIST LAND PLAN

Evening Star, Issue 19839, 12 April 1928, Page 13

SOCIALIST LAND PLAN

MR MACDONALD SAYS IT MEANS NATIONALISATION. Speaking at Gloucester recently to an audience that included more than 100 farmers, Mr Ramsay MacDonald, M.P., said Labor did not believe that the agricultural industry was going to be supported like a rotten tree by such expedients as doles, protection, or anything of that nature. The first essential was to get a. complete survey of British agriculture. Upon that would be based a really scientific policy. • The question of prices is tho central problem in agriculture. Farmers are not getting the prices they ought to get. “ When the middleman is in a position to create artificial prices the middleman is abusing his powers, and you and 1 have to look after him.” Stabilisation ia not going to be done by one act. It covers a whole series of endeavors. Mr MacDonald said it was vitally necessary to have democratic control of wheat pools in the dominions. The country then, through national purchasing hoards representing the great co-operative movement of the country and the general consumer, could put the wheat on our market at economical prices, and would enable wheat to be grown in this country at prices satisfactory to the farmers, “In the end,” ho said, “you will have to conic to the nationalisation, of land.”