Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, THURSDAY, MAY 10, 1923. AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 16122, 10 May 1923, Page 2

Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, THURSDAY, MAY 10, 1923. AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION.

Thd present unenviable position of the agricultural industries of Great Britain is of primary importance to NewZealand, in view of the need of finding markets in the United Kingdom for increasing quantities of our farm products and the efforts being made to secure preference for Dominion produce as a. matter of Imperial policy. The question was discussed at the end of March by tins British Prime Minister (Mr. Bonar Law) with a deputation representing the National Farmers' Union, the National Union of Agricultural Workers, and the agriculture section of the Workers' Union. Tho views put forward have a special interest to all on this side of tho world. It was represented that agriculture was in an impossible position. The Government was asked to state- clearly and unequivocably what, it expected from the industry, and whether it desired tho industry to bo conducted on a strictly economic or individual basis, or upon political and social lines. If tho Government desired to see the industry organised on a

strictly economic basis, it must be prepared, said the deputation, to fUce uncomplainingly diminished food production, diminished rural population, and the consequent flocking of the rural population to the towns, the layihg down to grass of all but the most fertile lands, and the reversion to what wus known as ranch farming. If, oh the other hand, the Government decided to reduce the nation’s dependence upon imported food supplies, and to retain or increase at an adequate living wage, the numbers of workers oil the land, then the nation must he prepared to pay. Further, it should in justice to the industry repeal the Safeguarding of Industries Act, and remove all other forms of protection and all subsidies granted to other industries in Great Britain, as well as cease to subsidise the development of agriculture in the Dominions through the Empire Settlement Act. It was pointed out that the prospect for the worker was deplorable, while it was almost impossible to exaggerate the gravity of the position in, which very many of the farmers were placed. The Prime Minister told the deputation that the Government quite realised the serious position of agriculture. The Government was asked to do something to prevent the fall in the production of foodstuffs. That was only possible in one of two ways, either by u big subsidy, the extent of which no one could foresee, or by ; ; .lection. •Subsidies had been tried and found impracticable, and he did not think, there was the slightest possibility of any large subvention by the State to help to get the agricultural industry on to an economic basis. As for protection, the public was not ready for it, and the majority did not want it. Such other means of helping as credit facilities, rating, education, and adjustment of prices had been taken up by the Government. Tito question was : Is the industry to be self-supporting or is it not? What agriculture was suffering was the direct result of the war, though it was !in a worse position than almost any i other industry. “With regard to your larger questions,” said Mr Bonar Law, ‘‘l do not see what can be done, or what you could expect the Government

to do. You come to me and say the position is very bad, and you ask the Government to put it right. We should be only too glad if we were able to do so; we realise the position in which your industry is placed, but I do not see any practical scheme by which that can be done. The real question is : Are we prepared to say that the industry is to be conducted on an economic basis? I will say nothing about the advisability of Protection, but it is obvious that it cannot be done until the country is in favor of it, but it is not to-day. lam sure it is not. It is impossible,' reiterated the Prime Minister, "that the industry should be supported by the State; it must live on an economic basis." The deputation, it will be seen, received but cold comfort, and the outlook for farming in Britain is declared by the newspapers to be gloomy in the extreme. Commenting on the subject, the London Times says: "The burdens on agriculture are very heavy, though nowhere so immediately menacing as in the Eastern Counties. The existence of farming as it has been practised in East Anglia is threatened, and with it the existence on the land of the present struggling and much-to-be-piticd rural population. Farmers, landowners, land-workers, and corngrowing are vitally affected. The margin in hand, on which a settlement of the present strike of farm laborers rests, is so small as to offer no permanent relief for tlie laborers if it is favorable to them, for in any case their very livelihood, and that of their employers, is at stake. 2s'o doubt existsi about the facts. The Norfolk laborers are justified in their clamor, and the farmers are not in a position to meet it. The disaster is due to causes about which also there can be do doubt. At present no one, whether landlord, farmer, or laborer, is making anything out of the land comparable to the profits made by shareholders, managers, and employees in other industries. The land suffers, moreover, from several disabilities peculiar to it. It is taxed and rated beyond the just amount; the agricultural landlord whose land yields him an income is almost non-existent. His poverty works witli a downward effect. But when ail such burdens on the land as are admittedly unfair are removed or mitigated, the relief to agriculture will be only partial and gradual. There will be no dramatic improvement. The tendency towards the production of what can be sold, rather than Avhat could be. grown, will not help to keep up the. rural population; the drain on the villages will not be stopped. A distinguished authority, Lord Ernlie, has recently drawn a depressing picture of fanning left to the free play of economic forces. In his opinion the present crisis must be met, under the conditions expounded by the Prime Minister, by one of two expedients—either by marking time or by the permanent conversion of tillage to pasture. He hopes that farmers will choose the former course. If prices, which are uncertain, rise, tillage, ho thinks, may yet be saved. But for the immediate future the only business advise she can give to the average farmer is to grow less food —a disheartening conclusion, especially in view of the consequences to labor." Those consequences, since Lord Ernlie wrote last November, seem to be already becoming more and more inevitable. The lesson they impart will not, it is to be hoped, bo lost either on the townspeople or on the landworkers. The former have much to learn about the facts of agriculture, and the latter have to remember that it will always be mainly through their own endeavors that their difficulties will be overcome. Lord Ernlie does not despair of their ultimate recovery if they can all get together—owners, farmers and laborers —and co-operate, to an extent hitherto uhattempted, in growing, distributing, and marketing their products." These remarks give us some idea of what the British agriculturalist is up against and they should help our own farmers _to bear with patience their own adversities. Not only that but they servo to impress upon us the solid fact that the one way to effect improvement in prices is to reorganise the system of marketing. There must bo co-operation on tlio part of our producers to regulate the supplies to the Home markets and to establish the highest standardisation of products, so that New Zealand will bo able to command the best prices becauso of the quality of the goods it has to sell. Furthermore, it seems to us, the time is opportune for, the overseas representatives to join with the' producers of the Homeland in impressing upon the British Government and Parliament that salvation to the agricultural industries both of Britain and the Dominions can only come througn the reasonable, rational and highly desirable process of imperial preference. So long as Great Britain maintains a position of giving foreigners the same freedom of British markets as is enjoyed by her own producers and the producers of the Empire, so long will British agriculture languish.