LEVY ON DAIRY IMPORTS

Evening Star, Issue 22462, 6 October 1936, Page 7

LEVY ON DAIRY IMPORTS

ENGLISH FARMERS RENEW DEMAND H.Z. BEPLIES WITH SHIPPING CONTRACT CASE FOR CONSUMER AND DOMINIONS [By a Correspondent.] (By Air Mail.) LONDON, September 12. Widespread dissatisfaction with the working of the English milk marketing scheme, coupled with the continued improvement in the prices of imported dairy products, indicates that when Parliament reassembles next month Home farmers will be loud in their demands for a levy on all dairy imports to help them out of their present difficulties. Somerset farmers, for instance, the other day indignantly pointed out that while Dominion butter and cheese prices were 40 per cent, up on those of last year, the prices fixed by the English Milk Board for manufacturing milk during the 1936-37 season were no better than those of 12 months ago. Mr Sidney Wear (chairman of the Somerset Milk Committee) said that he had vainly suggested to the board that no milk should be sold to manufacturers under 6d a gallon, as' compared with the actual contract price of about 3Jd a gallon. Meanwhile, New Zealand and Australia were sending over increased quantities of butter and cheese at guaranteed prices,' irrespective of what they made in England. SUBSIDISING MILK CONSUMPTION. The ‘ Morning Post’s ’ agricultural correspondent follows the same theme in a criticism of the proposal for a separate Milk Products Marketing Board to control the production and marketing of Home milk manufactures. “ So long as the flood of foreign and dominion imports overwhelms the Home market,” he says, “it is difficult to see how any Milk Products Board can help the farmer out of his difficulties. If the scheme were accompanied by a Government undertaking that, an earmarked tariff be employed to imported milk products so that the Home producer could produce at a reasonable profit, the scheme might have a great deal to commend itself. “ An earmarked tariff on all imported milk products could, moreover, be used to subsidise liquid milk for the benefit of producers and the most important class of consumers, women and children.” Health experts and consumers’ representatives, on the other hand, are of the opinion that there would be little point in subsidising liquid milk consumption by taxing butter and cheese—an obvious example of robbing Peter to pay Paul. Professor H. D. Kay, for instance, told the British Association the other day that if the national milk consumption were raised from .42 pint per head pejt day to a full pint, Home farmers would not need to bother about the production of milk manufactures at all. It would, in fact, take years for them to meet the increased demand for liquid milk, which would amount to 2,200,000,000 gallons annually, or double the present total production. LORD BLEDISLOE’S PLEA. Lord Bledisloe took the same point of view in a recent broadcast address on Home agriculture. “ If our consumption of milk,” he said, “ were raised to the level of that in the United States, Sweden, and Switzerland, there would be no glut of milk or milk products in our markets, even if our dairy farmers produced their maximum, and the present exportable surplus of butter and cheese from New Zealand and Australia entered them without any restriction. We must all earnestly strive to evolve a long-range plan which will save the efficient farmer in the Old Land from bankruptcy, be acceptable to the great British proletariat, and fair to our overseas dominions. This must be the common aim of farmers throughout the Empire, and in seeking it we must never he tempted to drift apart.” The case for the consumer—and for the dominions—will no doubt he powerfully reinforced by the influence of British shipping and industrial interests in any consideration of proposals to tax or otherwise restrict Empire imports. "BRITISH SHIPS FOR BRITISH GOODS.” The New Zealand dairy authorities in London were, therefore, particularly well advised in releasing to the British Press last week details regarding the £11,000,000 freight contract which the New Zealand Government has negotiated with British shipping interests for the carriage of Dominion meat, fruit, and dairy produce to Britain. Practically every newspaper of importance in the country has given prominence to the announcement, 'and the editorial comment of the ‘ Manchester Daily Dispatch ’ is typical:— “ Congratulations to the New Zealand Government,” it says, "British ships, manned bv British seamen, for British goods. That is the only way to meet the menace of foreign subsidised shipping. Other dominions please copy,” DIET OF THE NORTH. Sir John Haslam, M.P, for Bolton, and an old friend of New Zealand, has a word of good advice for Northern housewives in a recent letter to the Press Commenting on an official report that a proportion of mothers and children in Lancashire were suffering from insufficient consumption of milk and milk products, he says : “ While poverty is undoubtedly one of the principal causes of many workingclass parents not obtaining a sufficiency of these foods for themselves and their children, I would point out that plentiful supplies of two of the most essential milk foods—namely, butter and cheese—can to-day be purchased at prices_ within the reach of the great majority of the population. " New Zealand butter and cheese, for example, are being retailed at prices which are actually below the pre-war level. Yet our average weekly consumption of butter is no more than half a pound a head, and of cheese as little as three ounces a week! “The fact that a fullv adequate diet, including generous supplies of dairy products, can be provided at a minimum cost, has been proved conclusively by the National Council of Social Service and allied organisations in their administration of a chain of seaside holiday camps, to which 50,000 children f vnm the distressed areas are being sent this summer. ‘‘ The butter ration in these camps is three times the average national consumption, and the milk and cheese ration is correspondingly high. liemarkable improvements, as a result of

this dietary, are reported in the physical condition of the children, many of whom come from Lancashire and other northern countries. “ All of these considerations, I submit, impel one to the conclusion that proper feeding is very much a matter of wise spending. This is particularly true in view of the curious willingness of Northern housewives generally to pay higher prices for foreign butter, in spite of the cheapness and more constant nutritive value of the Dominion variety.”.