EMPIRE FOOD SUPPLY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19377, 15 July 1937, Page 8

EMPIRE FOOD SUPPLY

PRODUCERS TO CONFER AUSTRALIAN PROPOSAL SAFEGUARDINO MARKETS SYDNEY, July C. In March o£ next year a conference of the primary producers of the Empire will be held at Sydney, during the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the first white settlement in Australia. The proposal for an Empire conference originated in Canada, and received cordial support in New Zealand and Australia. The suggestion originally was that the gathering should be held in London, but as that plan lapsed Australian producers decided to convene the conference for Sydney during the national celebration.

A committee of producers was appointed some time ago to carry out die organising work, and Mr. M. P. Dunlop, a member of the Legislative Council of New South Wales and general president of the Primary Producers’ Union of New South Wales, was elected chairman. Mr. Dunlop, who is a prominent authority on Australian agriculture, is a member of the Dairy Produce (Export) Board, and holds executive office on a number of organisations established in the interests of the farming community. The conference is receiving warm support from both the Commonweaitn and State Governments, and every assistance is being given to make it one of the most important gatherings in the history of farming. The agenda for the conference, while dealing largely with marketing problems, covers a wide range of important subjects. An outcome of the deliberations is expected to be the establishment of a liaison and consultative committee, and among its duties will be the co-ordination of the interests of the farmers of the Empire to enable them to take a common stand for the protection of their welfare when occasion arises.

Strong emphasis is laid on the fact that the chief aim of the conference is to provide a better understanding between the producers in the various countries of the Empire, and to remove difficulties which now stand in the way of unanimity of action for the betterment of primary industry. The producers in the Dominions feel that they should be accorded a greater share of the market for foodstuffs in the United Kingdom, not at the expense of the farmers of Great Britain,, but only to the extent that the Home farmers cannot meet the consumption requirements of the market. “We feel that in the interests of the Empire,” Mr. Dunlop explained, “the sale of Dominion products should be fully safeguarded on the British market, subject of course to the preference to which the producers in the United Kingdom are entitled. If restricted control is unavoidable for the protection of the farmer in the Homeland, the imports of foreign primary products should first be curtailed before the Dominions are asked to accept a principle which must inevitably retard their natural progress and development. “The prosperity of the Empire," Mr. Dunlop added, “must be built up in time of peace if it is to be seeux-e in time of crisis. This can only be done by an expansion, not by a contraction of agriculture. The first considei-a-tion is to develop farming in the United Kingdom to its full capacity, and then to encourage Dominion agriculture to an extent that it will be able to meet the market requirements of the United Kingdom that cannot be fulfilled by her own farmers. It ;cems unwise to strengthen the hands of foreign countries at the expense of the Dominions, especially when, many of those countries have practically closed their doors to British products.”