BRITISH AGRICULTURE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 15 January 1936, Page 2

BRITISH AGRICULTURE

LORD BLEDISLOE’S COMMENTS

Surveying the changed agricultural position which ho found on his return from New Zealand, Lord Bledisloe, in a recent speech, said that the most surprising in the transformation scene was the picture of the British farmer — the most individualistic of all human beings—complacently welcoming Government control as the only alternative to insolvency. He was confident that the perpetuation of fiscal assistance to the 'farming community by successive British Governments would depend upon four main factors: —(l) The maintenance of a reasonably high standard of quality both in farming and in farm products ;(2) the availability of essential foods for the working population at a reasonable price; (3) fair, impartial, and unprejudiced treatment of all who put their capital or their labour in winning wealth from British soil; and (4) due consideration of the legitimate claims of our oversea Dominions. The first of these involved, in his judgment, the drastic vocational improvement, or else the entire elimination, of the “lame dogs” of the agricultural industry, who did not credit to British farming and who militated against the equitable treatment of their efficient colleagues by claiming from the general public a benefit which they did not merit. There were far too many duffers living on British soil to-day. The second involved the effective protection of both producer and consumer against excessive distributive profits, however efficient such distribution might be. The third implied a sound conception of the paramount importance to the whole body politic of confident development and improvement of agricultural land, even if some financial advantage accrues to those who undertook it; and the fourth was conditional upon a much more comprehensive and concurrent knowledge of British farming and of that of our overseas Empire than any British Government or Government Department had hitherto shown that it possessed.