FIXED WHEAT PRICES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1693, 31 March 1917, Page 2

FIXED WHEAT PRICES.

WHILE when I-growing is being urged in New Zealand it is instruetive to read Mr Lloyd George’s reasons for fixing encouraging wheat prices in the United Kingdom for a period of six years. After pointing out in the House of Commons the possibility of food shortage/ lie said that “the greatest obstacle to taking immediate action to meet this exigency is the timidity of the farmer when it comes to cutting up his pasture. He had been caught twice with too much arable land, and caught very badly, in 1880 and in 1890. These years had given the British farmer a fright. The plough —and it is no use arguing with them, you must give him confidence —the plough is our hope. You must cure the farmer of his plough fright, otherwise you will not get crops. What does he say 1 ? The farmer thinks in rotations. He is not thinking merely of what will happen next year when he is cutting up his pasture. He has got to think of the years ahead: otherwise he is the loser. It is no use promising him big prices for next year and then dropping him badly for the next few years. He has got before his eyes a picture of accumulated crops across the seas ready to be dumped down in this country the moment the war is over. Every farmer we have appealed to has always talked in that sense, and we must get over that, otherwise he will not cut up his pacture lands.”