BRITAIN’S MEAT POLICY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 58, 11 March 1935, Page 6

BRITAIN’S MEAT POLICY

"THE policy proposed by the United Kingdom in regard to its 1 meat imports has the virtue of simplicity of administration. What is proposed is that the present quota arrangements should be abandoned and that imports of meat should be free in so far as quality is concerned, but that all imports should bear an import tax. This import tax should provide a fund from which Brtish meat producers could be paid a direct subsidy. Were such a policy implemented, then the British Government would be free from the tiresome negotiations which must be entered into every time the quota arrangements are altered. But even though there is an apparent simplicity in the method proposed to be adopted, there is nevertheless present in the policy the seeds for further disruption. The direct subsidy method of dealing with industry has the same defect as the tariff, it enlarges the Home production, which is one of the ends sought to be achieved; but the marginal producer —that is, the one who produces with the minimum of profit, or no profit at all—is still in a precarious position. On prices falling he is used as a stalking horse when an increase in Ihe subsidy is sought. Meat is naturally subject to variations in prices, because the total of supplies depends chiefly on the weather conditions. As weather conditions alter, so too, do the supplies in sympathy therewith. The trouble with the subsidy proposal of the British Government, therefore, is that it will ever be a bone of contention, there will ever be powerful influences striving tv have the subsidy increased, and the degree of stability which it is hoped to be achieved in the meat production of the Empire will be as far off as ever.