ASSISTING FARMERS

Taranaki Daily News, 10 November 1934, Page 12

ASSISTING FARMERS

MR. WALTER ELLIOTS POLICY. AVOIDANCE OF FRICTION. i Willingness of the British Government to discuss the interests of other nations as well as those of its own in the revolution it is committed to in United Kingdom farming was stressed by Mr. Walter Elliot, Minister for Agriculture, at a luncheon given to himself and Mrs. Elliot by the Foreign Press Association in London. Mr. Elliot’s view is that the rime has gone by for regarding buyer and seller as in any way in opposition to one another. He invites both sides to co-operate in the developing of markets to the advantage of all concerned. He claims to be bringing about a revolution in which the fact is recognised that no one set of people can prosper at the expense 'of others. British townsfolk, constituting 93 per cent, of the total population of Britain, he said, had become willing to forego something of cheapness in the cost of their food and raw materials. They would do this in order to keep the villagers, who made up the other 7 per cent., profitably at work in their fields, thereby helping to provide a market for the goods that the town had to offer. ORGANISING PRODUCERS. Overseas producers likewise were to be similarly organised to the mutual benefit of themselves in their own lands, and to that of the farmers and the manufacturers in Britain. While Britain’s agricultural policy, he admitted, was designed primarily to help the people of the United’ Kingdom, it was also to afford a market to those overseas who in their turn would help to purchase British goods. Mr. Elliot quoted, striking figures in support of his contention that the British market for farm produce is the largest anywhere. Britain, he said, takes a large share of the world’s'total overseas sales. It buys one-third of all the wheat, 40 per cent, of the eggs, 48 per cent, of the cheese, 70 per cent, of the butter, 71 per cent of the beef, 94 per 'cent.'of the milk, and 96 per cent of the bacon and ham. Britain’s 2,250,000 unemployed, forced out of the factories as they had been by effects of the world trade crisis, had now to find work on the farms, Mr. Elliot explained. What was new in the position was recognition by the most individualistic set of people in the world—the British fanners—that in order to make room for these unemployed there must be reorganisation of farming generally. SUCCESS OF MILK SCHEME. Thus, the British Government’s milk scheme, by which complete pooling of effort was brought about, had been accepted by 97 per cent of all the United Kingdom producers of milk. Crises in Britain’s agricultural policy might arise from time to time in the future, and have to be dealt with, but behind such happenings solid confidence was growing up. . . The change that was being effected Was of world-wide dimensions and the British Government desired nothing better than to sit round a table and discuss it with consumers and producers of all countries, so that the maximum benefit of all might accrue. Mr. Elliot made an excellent impression by his address, his homely Scots accent fitting well with the friendliness of the surroundings in which he spoke. M. Jean Massip, president of the Foreign Press Association, in welcoming him, Mr. Elliot, referred to anxiety felt in all producing countries overseas at the restrictions that Britain had of late been placing upon their goods. Mr. Elliot,' while not denying the reality of these restrictions, succeeded in producing the impression that at least so far as he was himself concerned, they would be worked in such a manner as to cause the minimum of interference with-business.