FACTORY AND FIELD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26779, 24 May 1948, Page 2

FACTORY AND FIELD

BRITAIN STRAIGHTENS OUT HER BUDGET Special to the Daily Times, By G. Grafton Green LONDON, May 17.

In some of the best spring sowing weather on record, Britain’s farmers made a good start for the 1948 harvest Spring wheat, oats and barley are going in with the knowledge that the more the country produces the more dollars can be saved or used to pay for other essential imports. The nation’s Budget is being straightened out in the fields as well as in the factories. In 1940 the farmers of Britain astonished the world when, with the nation’s food supplies threatened by U-boats, they brought about a spectacular increase in production. To-day most of them are better equipped to repeat the achievement. Last year the output of agricultural machines was more than five times the total output of 10 years earlier. That has not only helped the farmers of Britain to get more out of their land; it has also given a boost to Britain’s exports of agricultural machinery, which are to-day about three times as great as before the war.

The small farmer is making increasing use of the pools of agricultural machinery which he can hire at times of special need. And when harvest time comes the helpers will be there. Already the target of 200,000 voluntary workers on the land is within sight, even though it is 50,000 more than last year.

Recruiting for volunteer harvest camps to be set up in 100 centres is going well. In the South-eastern region, which includes London, the number of applications received so far is more than double that for last year.