SUBSIDIES FOR FARMERS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 11 April 1934, Page 3

SUBSIDIES FOR FARMERS

ORGANISING BRITISH PRODUCTION DEMANDS ON THE TREASURY LONDON. Ist March. Mi Walter Elliot, the Minister ot \gricidtiire, is a strong man in the Cabinet. ami be has need of all his strength, for lie has shouldered a Herculean task (writes the "Argus” correspondent). The English farmer lias always distrusted cooperation. and, even more, any form ot Slate control, yet Air Elliot has made himself responsible for far-extending proposals for supervising wheat-growing, bop production, potato marketing, and pig-rearing, and has now added to his troubles by launching a plan for 'putting bottom in the milk market aiffi cleaning up British dairy herds.” Each of these proposals' involves a subsidy, so politicians in general are troubled at the ever-growing demands upon the Treasury. The re-organisation of British agriculture has thus far entailed a diversity of proposals, and all cost money. Thus, wheat-growers reccove grants based upon world wheat- prices, the cost being borne by the consumer. The hop grower is sheltered by a high tariff which enables the Ministry of Agriculture io superintend production. Beet sugar is subsidised to the extent of more than £3,000,000 a year, the justification being that it was practically a non-ex-istent ministry in England, and ten years was required to justify the erecliou of the necessary factories to deal with the beet when grown. Air Elliot’s milk production and marketing proposal is the most elaborate ol the Government’s efforts on behalf of agriculture, and is due lo the fact that an earlier marketing plan was undermined by a large surplus of supplies over consumption. This surplus is manufactured into butter and cheese, mid both have, suffered a slump in price, as every Australian and New Zealand producer knows. Under favourable climatic conditions milk can be produced m E'ngkiiicl with profit at 5d a gallon, but Air Elliot wants to help milk farmers who ere not woming under "favoured conditions.” and so he is instituting a pool in the interests of the regions of more expensive production. It seems almost certain that any such proposal must increase production in the "favoured” regions, and so still further increase the trouble already clue to over-production. Air Elliot is, therefore, attempting to increase consumption by assisting the provision of milk for school children at cheap rates. Already 800,000 school children drink 8,000,000 gallons a year in school, and it is hoped to double this amount. There are 6,000,000 children in British schools, and all would benefit by drinking a glass of milk a day. At present school children pay lcl a glass for milk in schools, but Air Elliot purposes to halve the price, and at the same time preach the, virtues of milkdrinking. His ideal is that all the O.CCO.CCO children should have their glass of milk a da- thus bringing up the consumption in schools alone to something like 50,000,000 gallons a

year. An easy course would have been to "stabilise” milk prices by* regulating dairy produce imports, but. in this, Air Elliot is hampered by the Ottawa agreements. He therefore proposes to guarantee the price which producers will receive for milk sold for manufacturers at a price considerably in excess of tlint at present existing, or indeed likely for the next two years. The subsidy will give j the producer £1,750,000 more for his milk in 1934-5 without any necessary rise in the price paid by the consumer. The same tiling will occur in 1935-36, and then the milk industry will have to repay the Government, presumably out j of profits arising from the greater eon-: sumption of milk. In addition, Air I Elliot's plan aims at increasing the pur- 1 ity of British milk Ivy paving farmers bonuses upon herds that have been of-1 fieiallv tested. Mr Elliot explained that lie did not want “vets” running after ( Hie farmer, but wanted farmers to run after the “vets." The A!blister hopes that farmers will do this if they see a prospect of financial return for the time and money “clean herds" necessarily cost. Tlie Government is offering £750.000 for the "cleaning-up" of British herds, ami £500.000 towards the cost of a milk publicity system aiming at increasing milk-drinking in IHlsin. In theory, the Government's milk policy in-1 snlsites Hie British producer from the . effects of a depressed world market, without taising the price to the toiisum-j er. Its weakness lies in the fact that it | imposes no limit upon production, j Friendly critics of Mr Elliot suggest j that the Ministry of Agriculture should profit by the experience of the subsidy upon British wheat, and only pay a, fixed : subsidy upon milk, and not a limitless j one. Owing to the wheat subsidy there j Inis already been some excess of produc- I lion, so that wlieatgrowers for their j 1933 harvest will receive only 27-29ths j of the. nominal value of tlie guaranteed I deficiency payment. Both tlie milk out-1 put and tlie effective price would thus ' be settled by healthy competition : among the milk farmers themselves, and the incentive to efficiency would remain.