WHAT SUBSIDIES COST.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13180, 12 February 1936, Page 5

WHAT SUBSIDIES COST.

SECOND EDITION

BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY.

BRITAIN HAS LOST £50,000,0001

Unite* 1 Press Assn.—By Electric T elegraph—Copyright. LONDON, February 10. In the Commons Major * Elliot, Minister of Agriculture, moved the second reading oi th* Sugar Industry Reorganisation Bill, which proposes the amalgamation of the fifteen existing sugar beet companies under a permanent Sugar Commission. The Bill proposes the maintenance of sugar beet-growing sufficient to produce 560,000 tons ol white sugar yearly. The direct subsidy for 1935-36 will be £2,775,000, compared with £4,429,000 last year. After stating that Britain now represented one-third of the world’s sugar market, Major Elliot said the country was becoming almost an entire world market for some products. Britain's share of the imports of the world’s exports had risen since 1925 as follows: Wheat, 27 to 40 per cent. ; butter, 66 to 82 per cent. ; beef and veal, 64 to 82 per cent. ‘ We must seek a new technique to deal with the absorption of the world’s surplus,” he added.

Mr Tom Williams, moving a Labour amendment objecting to the perpetuation of the subsidy, said the Treasurv had already forfeited £50,000,000.