HOME MARKET AND EMPIRE FARMERS

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5315, 30 January 1947, Page 5

HOME MARKET AND EMPIRE FARMERS

(Press Assn.—

ADMISS'ION . QUERIED subsidy system is mooted in bill

-Rec. 9.30 p.m.)

LONDON, Jan. 29. Dominion primary producers are likely to have a very .elose personal interest in the Agri--culture Bill now in process of its first reading in the House of Commons. Inevitably the Bill raises the question of the place of the JJritish farmer, in relation to the Dominions, farmer, in the British market. It is a question which the Government does not appear ready to answer at present. It was put tv/ice to Mr. Tom Williams, Minister 'of Agriculture, in the course of the openirfg debate on the first reading, on .both occasions by Captain Crookshank ( ConservativeGainsborough), who led the Opposition's preliminary attack upon the measure. On the first occasion Captain Crooikshank asked Mr. Williams pointblank : — "Do you or do you not agree that, whatever happens, the home producer must come first and the Em.pire producer seccnd?" On the second occasion Captain Crookshank asked if the Minister was prepared to agree that the home producer must be the first consideration, and if he would adhere to that attitude when the question of Imperial preferences came up for revision in conformity with the provisions of the American loan. Again Mr. Williams did not reply. Three M&in Provisions The Bill has three main provisions. It proposes to guarantee prices and markets for specified periods by machinery still lo be devised; it proposes to give the Government the right to supervise inefficient farmers and, if necessary, to dispossess them; it proposes to give the State power to undertake agricultural development work which is beyond ihe . resources of private capital. The Opposition has already indicated that it is substantially in agreement v/ith the Government on the question of guaranteed prices and markets though it would like to know more about how this is to be aehieved but that it is hig-hly critical of the wide powers which the Bill seelks to give the Government. Mr. Wlilliams sought to allay these fears by making it plain that supervision of inefficient or 'unproductive farms would be carried out by Farmers' War Agricultural Committees, that in cases of alleged inefficiency the farms in question would be worked under supervision for ohe year and that, only if there was no improvement at the end of that time, would the owner or occupier be dispossessed.

The Dispossessed Farmer Even then, said the Minister, the dispossessed farmer wbuld have the right of appeal to a special Land Tribunal whose decision would be final and binding upon the Government. He contended that under this system the farmer could only oe supervised and judged by his peers, but the Opposition expressed ( apprehension about the degree of influence the Government would exercise in the matter, particularly in the appointment of Land Tribunals. At present the British Government | was paying roughly £4 O'O 0,000,030 annually in food subsidies in order to keep down prices of food to the British consumer and pay the prices asked both by tbe home and overseas producers. About half of this sum goes to British farmers and half to overseas producers, including the Dominions. It is recognised that this artificial regulation of prices imposes a very heavy burden upon the British taxpayer and it was suggested by one of the Opposition speakers, in the debate, that the Government should take steps to put the food position in its true light by removing the siu.bsidies and raising the prices of food.

It is already plain from the course of the debate that the Opposition will pursue the question of home versus overseas producer. In. this connection Mr. Williams said: "We want cheap food both from at home and abroad — wherever we can get it — but we do not want cheap .men either here or | elsewhere." j This statement may, perhaps, he taken to 'imply that the Government was reeonciled to the fact that the increased costs of agriculture, , both at home and abroad, nrust he refleeted in food prices.

Whether this is better done by increasmg food! prices to the copsumer or by levying taxation to pay subsidies is possibly an academic point. In the preamble to the Bill it speaks of "such parts of the food of the nation which it is desirable to produce in the United Kingdom."

The Opposition attacked this generalisation and. asked the Government to indieate, speeifichlly, what part of .the market it proposes to allocate to the home producer and what part to overseas. Further pressure for a more speeific description of the respective shares of the British market to .be allocated to British farmers and to overseas farmers will obviously he exerted as the debate proceeds. | By the end of last year, Britain had used up £150,000,000 of the American loan, which is just under one-sixth of the total. '