BRITAIN’S POSITION.

Hokitika Guardian, 26 February 1917, Page 1

BRITAIN’S POSITION.

LLOYD GEOBUE’S STATEMENT Food and Tonnage Supply. (Pan Pbess Association.— Copybioht.] (Australia & N.Z. Cable Association) LONDON, Feb. 553, r J'ho House of Commons was crowded to hear Mr Lloyd George’s statement. Hon s W. F. Massey and Borden were present. Mr Lloyd George in opening Ins speech said .that the nltimato success of the Allied cause depended upon tne solution of the tonnage difficulties.

Over ono million tons of our shipping was allocated to Franco alone and a considerable amount ,‘co Rittisia and Italy had. also a considerable amount sunk.

There was not only a shortage for the general needs of tlio nation, hut also for military purposes, and the nation must he prepared for drastic sacrifices in order to cope with the sub-, disaster confronted us.

The tonnage problem must therefore be tackled ruthlessly and promptly by naval / measures, ftbe building of new ships and dispensing with, unnecessary imports, and the increasing of our home food nroduetion. FOOD STOCKS LAMENTABLY LOW Our foodstocks at present are lamentably low, not owing to submarines, but to the bad harvest. For the safety of the nation we must make every effort to increase the production in 1917, and there are few weeks in which to sow spring wheat, barley and oats. MINIMUM PRICE GUARANTEED. In order therefore, to induce our farmers to plough pasture lands immediately it is proposed to guarantee the farmer a. minimum price for a definite period, while a minimum wa'ge will be fixed for agricultural labour. - Rent-raising would be prohibited, and the Board of Agriculture would enforce cultivation. TITEI MINIMUM PRICE. ' This guaranteed minimum price for wheat per quarter would be 60s. for 1917 and 55 shillings for the next three

years. Paper exports would be reduced to 640,000 tons, which is half the present allowance. CERTAIN RAW FRUITS PROHIBITED. All essential foodstuffs would be freelisted, but applet, tomnltoes and certain raw fruits would be prohibited. SOME SMALL FRUITS REDUCED. Oranges, bananas, grapes, aiumnds and nuts would be reduced to 25 per cent of the 1915 imports; and canned salmond would 'bo reduced by 50 per cent. COFFEE, COCOA ETC., STOPPED. Mineral water will be prohibited, and cocoa and coffee temporarily stopped, as we have large stocks of thews on hand. A FOREIGN TEA PROHIBITED. The importation of Foreign tea will ho prohibited, while even flic importation of Indian tea would he reduced to a certain extent. This would save 900,000 tons. STOPPAGE OF LUXURIES. He regretted exceedingly the stoppage of certain luxuries from France and Italy. The output of beer would be redureu to ton million barrels, thus saving 600,000 tons of imports for its manufacture.

Spirits '"would he correspondingly reduced. RESTRICTIONS -TO EE APPLIED AT ONCE, The above restrictions would bo posed immediately, ancH steps would be taken to prevent speculative buying ; and, if necessary, the Food Controller would control all these commodities. RESULT: WE CAN FACE ANYTHING. If this programme were carried out, and those able to help in production did help, there is nbt the slightest doubt that wc could face the worst the enemy could do.

■Tllil-; ENEMY’S OBJECT.

LONDON, Feb. 25,

After referring to the immense demands made, by the Allies on. tonnage the Premier said the Germans had concentrated upon the building of stiDmarines in order to destroy our mercantile marine. The enemy fully realised] that that was the only effective way of putting out of action what they considered to be the most formidable item in tne alliance, but the Government is proposing measures which, we think will be adequate. Gt) VEB NA IGN T’S M ESS AG E. MEAN ENORMOUS SACRIFICE.

Those measures moan an enormous sacrifice on the pailfc of every class m the community and our national grit is going to be tested. CLAUSE OF REDUCED TONNAGE. Mr. Lloyd George went on to point out that in the Twelve monhs before the war fifty million tons of shipping entered 'British ports. In this last twelve months that 1 been reduced to thirty millions, amt this reduction is attributable almost exclusively to /the. fact that a very large portion of our tonnage bad .been allocated to the Allies. The Hon. Long on behalf of the Premier announced that the importion rum would bo stopped, and tho importation of wines and spirits would tie reduced .seventy-five per cent, compared with 1013. SHIPPING OUTPUT MUST BE INCREASED. ""The Premier continued and said be was convinced after examination of the problem, and hearing what the employers had said, that the output c<> very considerably be increased by ; alteration of tho methods. Wherever payment by results bad been introduced there had been an increase in output in ship-building yards of from twenty to forty per cent.

Ho made a great and special appeal to unions concerned in ship-building to consent to the introduction of these methods. In some yards they had already been, introduced. IF LARGE WAGES EARNED, WOULD NOT TO REDUCED. It. also involved an undertaking on the part of tthe employers that if large wages wore earned by the men as a result of their special effort, no advantage .must bo taken of thait fact so as to reduce the rato, It is certain that if they had any intention of doing anything of that kina, not merely the Govt, but the Commons wuold depreciate the attempt, as it was essential to got as much work as possible out of the yards not merely for building ships for the mercantile marine, but for craft to cope with the enemy submarines . GREATEST CAPACITY IN TILE 4 WORLD. Our ship-building capacity is 'in« greatest in the world, but was barely adequate for the gigantic task. The French and Russian contributions wore very substantial, but the main burden was on the shoulders of

Britain, which it could bear successfully right to tliej end. TO SAVE TONNAGE IN TIMBER. Coming to the increased Home production o f 6,400,000 tons of timber imported last year, two million of tins were for pit props and the remainder for tlie military forces here and in France. '.Ho .referred to the Committee’s suggestion for increased economy in timber and arrangements were being mauo to carry out- the suggestion. THE PURCHASE OF FRENCH FORESTS. Another suggetsion wa's for making the army in France self-,supporting m this respect, and if they managed to secure a number of forests in France, and labour to cult them down this would be. an enormous saving in tonnage. In respect ltd- timber a third metlioa was developing in Home supplies and making Britain self-supporting during the war. Not long ago this was done and that was tjie question which they were now devoting themselves to, and he believed that several hundreds of tons og lieved that several hundreds of thousands, if not millions of tons of shipping could be saved. APPEAL TO WOODMEN AND FORESTERS. Ho appealed to woodmen and foresters to enrol themselves for the army. The State would then appeal to thousands of unskilled labourers to assist in the foresters work . MILLIONS OF TONNAGE. SAXjIJ. There* was no branch of National Activity where so much tonnage was saveable as in cutting timber. • IRON ORE. CANNOT REDUCE ITS IMPORT. Next dealing with iron-ore Mr. Lloyd George said we are importing millions of tons yearly, and we cannot cut this down as the supply is esseu-' itial for ship-building, machinery, muni tions, and agriculture, and so we must find ships for this'purpose at all costs or diminish the efficiency of our army and navy. FOOD SUPPLIES. Dealing with food suppics the Premier said twenty years after the corn laws were abolished we produced twice as much w befit as wc imported. FIVE MILLION FEWER ACRES OF ARABLE LAND. Since then four of five million acres of arable land had become pastureland about half the agricultural labour popu lation had migrated to the towns. BRITAIN’S SMALL ARABLE AREA.-

PRESENT FOOD STOCKS SMALLEST EVER KNOWN .

LONDON, Feb. 23. No civilised country in the world spent less, or. even as little, directly or indirectly as we did, and lie wanted the country to know that our food stocks were lower than in the recollection of man. CAUSE OF THIS SHORTAGE. This is due to the ' worst harvest within recollection. Last year the crops were a failure, and this had ;y very serious effect. EFFORT FOR THE .SAFETY OF THE NATION. Then our tonnage being absorbed to such an extent by the war, it is essentia! for the safety and life of the nation that we put forth immediately every effort to increase the production this year, otherwise the nation may have to choose, between diminsliing its military effort or underfeeding the population. FARM WORKERS NOT TO BE CALLED UP. The lack of labour was partly tho reason wlich prevented farmers y from ‘increasing their cultivation, but lie promised an effort to meet- this, by not cubing up agricultural able-bodied men • . FARMERS’ PLOUGH FRIGHT. .But the greatest obstacle was vne " timidity oi' farmers to cut up thenpastures. It was no good arguing that a farmer must bo given our confidence . Wo must cure the farmer of his plough fright, otherwise we would mu get crops. He did not believe that prices are going down immediately after the war. Germany after the war would be » gjreator purchase than ever, because her land has been let run down and that was true of the whole of Europe. ARABLE HAND AFTER THE WAR. IMPOVERISED AND UNCLEAN. Crop raising land in Europe would not raise as much per acre as before the war, because it lias been impovecised and unclean and it will take years to make it as good harvest raising soil as before. HIGH FOOD PRICES AFTER THE WAR. The demand for foreign food would be greater /than ever and lie thought there would be high prices for som© time after the wav, hut you camigt yev*

suade the farmer of this, and i|t is necessary to persuade him of it and n> > do .so within the next few days. IMPORTED NONESSENTIAL FOOD STUFFS. As regards foodstuffs we imported a large quantity which is not essential Ic the national well-beings It hough very desirable. He outlined various articles affected already cabled and said, “We must to a much larger extent depend on our home grown oats. 900,000 TONS SAVED. Taking all these categories of feeding stuffs together lie hoped i to save over nine hundred thou- ; sand tons of imports per annum, which showed the extent to which we relied upon foreign countries for such commodities. IM PORTED LUXURIES. Then there were manufactured articles, articles of luxury which we have stopped the importation of in very considerable numbers. These regretted stoppages of importations from Italy and France would be a blow to certain industries, bust lie was driven to it, not only forourselves, hut for itho sake of France and Italv: and

he was sure that if these two countries rad to choose bet wee 'tbe two,, they would prefer saving our ships for other purposes. COROLLARIES TO FIXED PRICES. He mentioned several corollaries to guaranteed prices, including miminimtim wage for agricultural labourers; no rent raising; and power to enforce cultivation. GUARANTEED PRICES OF OATS. Guaranteed prices for oats in 1917 would be 38s 6d; for 1918 and 1919, 4is Gd,

The guaranteed price of potatoes this year would be £6 per ton. The Premier hoped that after these guarantees itlie farmers would put their hacks ino it and help to defeat the greatest menace that ever threatened any country. IMMEDIATE METHODS. As the measures which lie had so far outlined could not materialise fer months we had to consider what the nation could do without reviewing the 'Committee’s report regarding disp.nisi ble and indispensiblo articles. PAPER IMPORTS RESTRICTED. He would deal first with paper, which absorbed a good deal of tonnage. He expected the restricted imports would he distributed equally between printing and the packing trades. The importation of -printed matter, books and periodicals would be prohibited altogether, otherwise it would be unfair to our home trade. IMPORTS FOR LIQUOR MAKING-.. Referring next to importations for itlie manufacture of liquor, lie declared lie was approaching this question from the standpoint of temperance or of national sobriety, however desirable that might he, but it wa's purely a matter of combating the submarine menace and guaranteeing the nation againstthe possibility of famine or privation. Upon these considerations which lie indicated the Government had decided tlialb it would be impossible to continue to saction the absorption of such enormous tonnage for imports such as grain for the manufacture of beer, etc., so long as 'the nation was faced with the prospect of shortage for essential foods. THIRTY-SIX MILLION BARRELS OF BEER'IN 1914. He stated that in 1914 there were thirty-six million standard barrels of beer brewed in this country. TWENTY-SIX MILLIONS IN 1916. In 1916 that was reduced to twentysix million, this result being partly due t’o two or three million adults leaving Britain, and not so. much beer exported to the Army in France. It was not possible to guarantee enough food for the cuntry without taking a* deeper cut into the bandage. NOW REDUCED TO TEN MILLION BARRELS. Wo must now reduce it to ten million barrels. A SAYING ALONE OF 6110.000 TONS FEEDING STUFFS. This would save nearly six hundred thousand tons for feeding stuffs per annum, which is nearly a month’s supply of cereals. That was the direct. saving, but in an indirect shape it increased tonnage and the relief to congested traffic on our railways would be greater.* He recognised that we must guard against driving the population from beer to spirits, which would be a serious

disaster, therefore he-was imposing corresponding restrictions on supplies for spirits. There were other restrictions such as leather in raw hides, but be bad given in tlfe main a summary of the restrictions, and proposed to impose Them iinmcdiatclv. A* PASSIONATE APPEAL. It appears to me that the House and country will take them as a whole, and if all those called upon to suffer these restrictions ‘ and limitations will suffer them without complaint then I honestly say we can face the worst the enemy can do. CLOSES WITH A SOLEMN WARNING. If it were conceivable that our nation were not prepared to do and to endure ad these things, then 1 sav with all Solemnity that I do not know of any body of honourable men who would undertake to be responsible one hour for this terrible war. CRITICISM OF THE STATEMENT. LONDON, Feb. 23. In the House of Commons Hon Mr Runeiman iii a critical speech said the Premier’s statement wn's very gyave If the imports had been lut down a year ago it would have been possible to act more drastically then, but it was necessary now to have a healthy public opinion which could only be fostei-ed by the press. The Government should carefully consider tho accumulations of paper by wealthy concerns and arrange pooling paper supplies on an equitable basis,