"SALVAGING AN INDUSTRY"

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 43, 6 March 1937, Page 4

"SALVAGING AN INDUSTRY"

It is under this significant heading that a recently re ceived number of the London "Times" discusses the Livestock Industry Bill which was then before the House of Commons and has since become law. This measure is, of course, of interest to our own stock-raisers because its primary purpose js to assist British meatgrowers to stand up to competition in their home market from the oversea Dominions and foreign countries — Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the Argentine in particular. At the same time it is designed to bring the British product within the purchasing competence of the British consumer while affording the producer an overaj.1 return that will at least eover costs of production and may be hoped to yield some small margin of profit. The motive behind the Bill was much the same as ostensibly prompted our own Government to introduce the scheme of ' guaranteed prices" for dairy produce. The plan adopted, however, is distinetly different. Here we have a Government whose avowed aim it is to "socialise all means of production, distribution and exchange.' * So a beginning has been made by compulsory appropriation of all exportable dairy produce at prices arbitrarily fixed by the Govenment itself. In this way the producers have been deprived of all say in the oversea marketing of their products, now and presumably for as long as a Socialist Government continues in office. The Brtish Government 's plan consists in granting a subsidy estimated to be sufficient to cover, as already said, costs of production and leave something for the producer himself — though, of course, and perhaps with as good reason, the British beef-grower, like the New Zealand dairy-farmer, says it will do nothing of the kind. Setting that aspect of the question aside, however, the distinction is that, subject to some measure of much-needed regulation prescribed by a Permanent Commission, assisted by technical advisers, the actual marketing is left to a very great extent in the hands of the farmers themselves and their own organisations. In this way the Government has merely stepped in to help British stock-raisers to help themselves through a time of special difficulty. When that is passed whatever element of official eontrol is now imposed to assist in meeting this emergency wiljl be withdrawn. As the "Times" puts it, "the measure is, in short, an enabling measure, which will allow, and indeed stimulate, the industry to reorganise itself under the aegis of an independent Commission." This is a very different thing from a virtual commandeer at the , Gbvernment 's own price and destined to last at least as long as does tha Socialist Government itself. Another distinctive feature lies in the* fact that a very substantial, if not the greater, proportion of the British subsidy is to be provided by a levy upon imports of foreign meat. In our own case the whole burden of possible — for the present season at any rate very probable — ioss is to be cast upon the taxpayers of the country, who, however, are in no way to share in, or even get refund from, future possible profits. In justification of the British scheme it is pointed out that for nearly three years the home producers have been saved from bankruptcy only by some voluntary regulation of meat imports and by the State subsidy that has been in operation during that time. As compared with 1929, it 'S said, the price of cattie for slaughtering has fallen by twiic as much as the average decline in the index-number of agricultural prices generally. This is held to be mainly the result of competifion from countries where, from various causes, the cost of production is infinitely lower, but partly also from a change in dietary tastes and habits and in the size of families. In this resepct, too, there has to be taken into account also the marked improvement that in recent years has taken plaee in the imported products.