NORTHERN ADVOCATE DAILY FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 1934. BRITAIN’S AGRICULTURAL POLICY

Northern Advocate, 10 August 1934, Page 6

NORTHERN ADVOCATE DAILY

FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 1934. BRITAIN’S AGRICULTURAL POLICY

Registered for transmission through ' the post as a Newspaper.

Britain’s agricultural policy, especially in so far as it threatens to interfere with the natural growth of the primary industries of New Zealand, is of such importance that concentration of attention upon it is justifiable. London papers to hand by this week’s mail show that many speeches delivered in the House of Commons on the question of agricultural policy sounded a note of anxiety. ‘Whether the Government should set a limit to the quantities of primary produce received from overseas, or whether it should put a levy upon unrestricted importations in order ,to provide a fund from winch to compensate British farmers for any loss they might sustain as a result of competition from outside, was a matter about which the House of Commons was evidently much concerned. It is the Government’s main piivpose to restore hope, not to a single industry, but to the many" industries of which agriculture is composed. (They undertook the task at a time when the only feature common to all these industries was a catastrophic fall in prices, which seemed destined to continue until agriculture in that small and predominantly industrial country was practically extinguished. Between 1926 and 1932, 100,000 labourers left the - land, and in any industry shrinking of em-ployment-,;-far-more than any decline in production, is the first, sign of a landslide into bankruptcy. “-The arrest of this delay,” says ‘‘The Times,” “had to be the* first, though not the final, task of the Government. Stopping, the rot is only the essential preliminary to such a reorganisation both of production and of distribution as will ultimately load to an expansion of production based upon two unchallengeable principles, the first being the right of an efficient British agriculture to a better share of the British market, and the second being an actual enlargement of that market secured by an expansion of consumption.” Different industries have demanded different treatment. The first to be dealt with was wheat growing under the Wheat Quota Act of 1932. Under this Act a sum of about £8,000,000 has already been distributed to farmers, and the acreage under wheat Ifas been increased by about 30 per cent, since 3931. Barley-growers were dealt with by securing a promise from the brewers to use more British barley in return for the reduction of the beer duty in April, 1933, and the Brewers’ Society has stated that between August and! December, 1933, 530,000 cwt. j more British barley were used j than in the same period of 1032. j Sugar-beet, as was stated in the “Advocate” a few claytj ago, has been dealt with by ,subsidy for the past ten years, and this system has just been continued for another year. The acreage under sugar-beet lias increased by 50 per cent, to 366,000 acres since 1931, and marketing schemes both for sugar and for sugarbeet have recently been prepared by the interests concerned. But the subsidy scheme is recognised to be unsatisfactory in many respects —-notably in respect of its cost —and a special inquiry into alternative policies is now being conducted by a committee. This exhausts the list of industries which have been treated by methods peculiar to themselves. A whole further group, including oats and market gardening produce, has been treated by protective duties. The .horticultural duties have been

particularly successful. The area under glass houses and under fruit, vegetable, and flower crops has been greatly increased, and the number of canning factories has been trebled since .1927. The duties on foreign oats have recently been raised to a very high level, and a voluntary stabilisation of imports from Canada has been arranged. It is not yet clear, says “The Times/’ when commenting upon this matter, “what the effect will lie, but experience so far gives ground for two deductions, both fatal to the general and single employment of the instrument of tariffs, which is sometimes demanded. It seems, in the first place, that nothing except a virtually prohibitive tariff, most difficult to arrange and to adjust, will do any good; and, in the second place, that even a prohibitive tariff on foreign imports will do no good if the supplies available at home and in the. Empire are sufficient to flood the market.” “The Times” contends,, therefore, that it is not a pure accident that the most conspicuous feature of the Government's policy should be the preparation of marketing schemes, buttressed sometimes by tariffs, sometimes by quotas, sometimes by temporary advances to the boards administering the schemes, and sometimes by a combination of these forms of assistance. The principle of all these schemes is the same. They provide, after ratification by Parliament, for the self-gov-ernment of the industry concerned .under the shelter and, if necessary, the corrective of a regulation of imports. In view of this attitude, for it may be accepted that “The Times” voices the opinion of the British Mmistry, the anxiety with which Zealand is awaiting a definite pronouncement of the Home Government’s policy is understandable.