British Agriculture

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 132, 5 June 1937, Page 9

British Agriculture

A very important and significant statement about future policy lias just been made by tbe Minister of Agriculture. It comes just as a reconstruction of the Cabinet is at hand, but there should be sufficient guarantee of continuity of policy under Mr. Neville Chamberlain to assure that it will be the policy of the new Government. The chief feature of what Mr. Morrison has said is that it repudiates the idea of selfsufficiency in foodstuffs in time of peace. In effect he says the cost of this policy would be too great and that, if the power so to supply the whole country were developed, it would have to be liquidated should the day of emergency be too long delayed. in a word, the new policy means a return to the former British conception of buying foodstuffs abroad to make up the deficiency of the home supply with agricultural industry operating normally. At the same time, there is to be help and encouragement for the British farmer, with the Government prepared to spend up to £3,500,000 a year in providing it. It will take the form of research and service for the conquest of animal disease, attention to land drainage and a building up of soil fertility. The aim is to develop a reserve of power that can be drawn on in the event of national emergency. It means that, instead of production being kept at the level that would be necessary if the free flow of food supplies from abroad were interrupted or reduced, conditions will be created making it possible to build up to this level speedily. That is the reasonable interpretation of the new declaration of policy, which makes it important and reassuring to the Dominions now supplying the British market.