DAIRY INDUSTRY

Wairarapa Daily Times, 5 March 1934, Page 5

DAIRY INDUSTRY

THE QUOTA PROBLEM. LONDON, Saturday. The scheme of the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Walter Elliot, of subsidising the dairy industry has aroused considerable criticism both from those approving the general lines of his policy for the reorganisation of agriculture and those who find in straightforward tariffs and the exclusion of foreign imports an easy way to prosperity, says the commercial summary. As “The Statist” points out: “The latter class of critics ignore the fact that so long as the dominions’ butter and cheese enter duty free the dairying industry has little chance to gain fioiu an increase in duty on foreign butter and cheese. Even if the dominions agree to curtail imports of butter, which thev show no inclination to do, no material relief can be obtained from Danish competition, for the Anglo-Dan-ish trade agreement binds Britain to buy a minimum of 2,300,000 cwt. of Danish butter yearly. “At present there can be no question of regulating supplies of dairy produce by quota and increased tariffs on foreign imports would be insufficient to ensure our dairy farmers bettoi xcturns Mr Elliot's choice of measures to assist them is therefore restricted, and it is difficult to see what alternative course to a subsidy could hate been taken.” The Minister for Agriculture announced in the House of Commons on 22nd February that the Government proposed for two years beginning on Ist April next that the Milk Marketing Board should be guaranteed by means of Exchequer advances a minimum price of 5d a. gallon in the summer, from April to September, and 0d a. gallon in the winter, in respect of milk manufactured in factories m Great Britain. The advances were estimated to amount to from £1,500,000 to £1,750.000 in the first year. A sum of £“->O,OOO spread over four years would be provided for a purer milk supply campaign. . . lie explained that there was in Britain a surplus milk supply amounting to 20 per cent, in the winter and 40 per cent, in the spring and summer over liquid requirements, which must find a market in manufactured form such as butter and cheese. The grant would be contingent on the submission of an approved programme by the Milk Marketing Board containing, inter alia, the supply of milk to schools at reduced rates.