TOPICS OF THE TIMES.

Southland Times, Issue 22508, 16 February 1935, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE TIMES.

Quotas Versus Tariffs. A plea to the British Government to drop subsidies, quotas, levies and other complicated means of assisting agriculture is made in the Daily Express by Major R. Lloyd George, himself a poultry farmer. The National Government is, he says, supposed to have given a pledge not to “tax” food—they dodge that by giving subsidies. These “doles” to farmers must now cost the taxpayer between £20,000,000 and £30,000,000 a year. All these things tend to make the poor farmer a very unpopular man in the towns. The townsman very naturally says: “We are taxed again and again to pour more millions into the farmer’s pocket, and all the wretched fellow does is to go on grumbling and grousing." If this muddling policy of quota and subsidy is to be carried on indefinitely the man in the town will gradually lose all in-

terest in and sympathy for his brother on the land. Sooner than all this let us have straightforward Protection. We all know that the fatuous Ottawa agreement and the other pacts have tied our hands for a while—but even then lam not at all sure that some of the countries concerned would not be glad to get out of their stupid toils and face a duty. In any case let us get some definite policy for the future on these lines. As far as the Dominions and Colonies are concerned I feel certain some method of reciprocal preference can be arranged.

Labour and the Machine. “Labour-saving” machinery is thought by many people to be permanently displacing workers; the more machines •(Le fewer jobs, runs the pessimistic argument. I believe this argument is mistaken, writes Mr Geoffrey Crowther in the News-Chronicle, and since it is vital for deciding on economic and industrial policy, I will try to set out my reasons. From the history of the last two hundred years it is Quite clear that the introduction of labour-saving machinery has done far more good than harm. Some temporary unemployment and a great deal of personal misery were caused. The distress of the hand-loom weavers when thrown out of work by the invention of power weaving was so poignant . that the memory of it has lasted until the piesent day. But the inventions made it possible to employ many more weavers in the modern mechanized mills than in the old hand-weaving sheds—and they made it possible to provide cloth far cheaper than was possible before. Looking back we can say that much more ought to have been done to alleviate the personal misery involved and to lessen the brutality of the. early Industrial Age. But no one in . his senses would say that the machines had permanently increased unemployment or deepened depression. On the contrary, they have provided much more employment and greatly increased wealth. It is not hard to see how this happened. In some industries the machine cheapened production and lowered prices so much that very much more could be bought and more men employed, even though each man, with the aid of the machine, could now produce much more in a day than before.