OFFICIAL WIRELESS

Hokitika Guardian, 1 November 1929, Page 3

OFFICIAL WIRELESS

DUTY URGED ON GERMAN

WHEAT.

(British Official) Wireless), RUGBY, Oct. 30. Sir Edward lliffe, Conservative, in the House of Commons, called attention to the dumping of German wheat and other cereals in this country, and he moved that immediate steps be taken by the Government to counteract the injurious effect on British agriculture He said that the German Government a subsidy on wheat of approximately 13s (id per quarter, and in that way the British farmer could be undersold. The same system, he said, applied to barley and oats, though the amount varied. Apart from the subsidy, it was very difficult lor the British farmers to seil in competition with the German farmers', because of the longer hours of agricultural workers in Germany, and of the fact that, in many districts during the sowing and harvesting seasons, women and children laboured in gangs and were paid at the rate of approximately 3d per hour. Possible solutions were to put a duty on all bounty .fed cereals coming from abroad, except those from the British Empire, or else to subsidise the growing of those particular cereals in this country.

Hon. Mj Buxton (Minister of Agriculture), in replying, pointed out that the late Conservative Government, the majority of whose party, as lie understood, favoured protection, had frequently declined to adopt protection as a remedy for the British farmers’ difficulties. I he present Government could, no more than the late Government, impose a countervailing, duty to counteract the effect of German dumping which he agreed was regrettable and most damaging as for a subsidy to the British corn grower, the subsidy system had been repealed in the year 1921, and the late Conservative Government had explicitly repudiated the policy of the subsidy. He hoped, howc\ei, that conditions would offer an opportunity for action to be taken on non-party lines,, to which all could agree, without abating one jot of their principles. * Replying to an argument that the Anglo-German Commercial Treaty did not preclude a countervailing- duty, lion afr Buxton said that this treaty did preclude such a duty. He added : “It is not a treaty that we want to

denounce, or which any Government would denounce. It is a treaty which is considered of extreme value. The Government, like its' predecessors, is entirely opposed to duties on food.” LONDON, Oct. 30. In the i House of Commons, Sir Douglas Newton (Conservative) seconded Sir Edward Uiffe’s motion. He said that within the past ten years, wheat acreage had declined by 280 million acres, of which forty-five per cent, was within the Empire. Producing far more than the Empire’s needs, Britain’s wheat growers had led the world both in yield and quality. The motion was negatived by 260 votes to 157.