A COMPLAINT

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 38, 14 February 1930, Page 11

A COMPLAINT

WHEAT FROM GERMANY

DUMPING INTO ENGLAND

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, sth December. What may possibly lie one of Lord Bledisloc's last speeches in the House of Lords for a long time was when he complained a few days ago of the dnmping of foreign wheat in this country to the' detriment of the British farmers. Tho Governor-General-elect of New Zealand is always prominent when matters of agricultural moment aro under discussion. Sir B. Iliffo opened the question in the first place in the House of Commons. Ho moved: "That immediate steps should be! taken by the Government to counteract the injurious effect upon British agriculture of the dumping of Gorman wheat and other cereals upon the markets of this country." Ho said that in Germany there was an import duty on grain. bounty was provided by giving '.German exporters of grain a licence to import' an equal amount of grain to that exported. Tho exporter could sell his licence to the importer to pay the duty on his imports. Germany must import a certain quantity of hard wheats to mis with the wheat she grew for milling purposes. When the exporter sold his licence to tho importer he obtained a subsidy of 13s lOd a quarter. In that way he could undersell the farmers in this country. The same system applied to barley and oats, although the amount of the subsidies varied. Even apart from those subsidies it was difficult for British farmers to sell in competition with German farmers, owing to the longer hours worked by agricultural labourers in Germany. A man who studied the question in Germany had assured him that during the winter months.the hours of the German agricultural workers came to 48 a week. During the six summer months the hours were no less than 66 a week. In addition to that, in ' many of the districts during the sowing and harvesting seasons Women and children, from tho Balkans worked in gangs, and were paid at the rate approximately of 3d an hour. High as the subsidy was at present; in February next it was going to be considerably increased. COMPLETE DISHEARTENMENT. Lord Bledisloe, in the Upper House, asked His Majesty's Government whe-. ther they deemed it to be to the ad-' vantage of any section of the British community that foreign bounty-fed wheat and oats should bo dumped from abroad upon British markets at less than the cost of their production, either here or abroad, with consequent complete dishcartenment to British arable fanners at a time of almost unprecedented agricultural depression; and, if not, whether they regarded themselves as impotent, by diplomatic representation or otherwise, to check the process before further autumn cereal sowings were abandoned and further discharges of labour on arable farms took place. He moved for papers. Ho said that the quantity of German bounty-fed wheat imported this year had been 26 times as great as last year. The result of the importation of this wheat in certain markets had been to cause the price of British wheat to fall by 3s 6d to 4s a quarter. Though it was true that this German wheat was only a small percentage of the whole wheat consumption of this country, it represented a dangerous trend which threatened to bring our leading industry to bankruptcy and to deprive large numbers of agricultural workers; of their, normal employment. The continual shrinkage of the area of agricultural laud under arable cultivation was being accelerated by the disheartenment caused to farmers by the dumping of bounty-fed wheat. For the time being the dumping of this German wheat had been discontinued for a season which ho commended to the attention of the Government. That reason was that the German Government had recently increased from 40 to 50 per cent, the amount of home-grown wheat which' was compulsorily incorporated in tho native German loaf. That had absorbed to an appreciable extent'the amount of bounty-fed wheat which would otherwise have been exported. But this country was threatened with similar importation of breadstuffa from other countries, and notably in the form of flour from France. GOVERNMENT'S INACTIVITY. Earl de la Warr (Under-Secretary for War) said that movements of grain from Germany were only seasonal, and the exports had been accentuated _ during the past two years by exceptional conditions. According to the latest market reports little if any wheat or oats was now arriving in this country owing to the action of the German Government to which Lord Bledisloe had referred. How far this higher German demand would affect the question in the long run he would not like to say, but it would certainly give the Government time to consider the question afresh, and it was certainly an encouraging omen. , He added there were three possible lines of : action—the imposition of a duty, total prohibition of imports, and the setting up of an Import Board, The late Government felt themselves unable to carry through either of the first two proposals, and they were unwilling to consider the third. The result was that they did nothing. The position was now reversed. The present Government were unwilling to impose a duty or prohibit imports, and they had no evidence that farmers or the industry were likely to support the setting up of an Import Board. Lord Bledisloe said he would not press his motion for papers, but he would retire from that Chamber with a more than ever disheartened feeling that His Majesty's Government found themselves wholly incapable, even with the help of other parties who wero propared to help, of finding a solution to a very serious industrial problem which was agitating the mind of the agricultural community.