NEW ZEALAND'S WARNING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23828, 7 June 1939, Page 14

NEW ZEALAND'S WARNING

BRITAIN'S AGRICULTURAL VIEW LONDON, May 'B. Commenting on the Government offer to farmers of a subsidy of £ j per acre for all permanent grassland above two acres which is ploughed before September 30, the Birmingham Mail says: " For more than half a century our agricultural policy has been governed by the thesis that Great Britain is the workshop of the world, and that therefore, the more food we can buy from overseas the more manufactured goods we shall be able to export. It was economically sound up to the time of the Great War; it has grown increasingly unsound since, for our exports are shrinking, the 'balance' of trade grows more unfavourable, and the rearmament programme on which we are embarked is of such magnitude that it is bound to lose us still more overseas markets, apart from the grave trend of the self-sufficiency principle in foreign countries and British dominions which hitherto were among our best customers. "Thus, an extremely good case can be made out for an immediate rehabilitation of British agriculture to an extent much greater than is contemplated, for it is fallacious to suppose that only the exigencies of war can make it sound policy. "New Zealand has given us recently a warning of what we may expect in other Empire quarters. This is not to suggest that we must or can aim at producing the whole, or nearly the whole of our own food; but we ought right away to start producing considerably more than about one-third."