MEAT AGREEMENT.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 369, 25 February 1937, Page 3

MEAT AGREEMENT.

Liberal Criticism of Government Policf. In a discussion in the House of Commons bn the Meat Agreement, Major Lloyd George,, a Liberal, said the Government appeared to be trying to run the agricultural industry on the instalment system. Mr Lewis- asked if the Government had definitely abandoned what they themselves repeatedly stated to be the best long-term policy, namely, the imposition of a duty on all imports of foreign meat, with a preference to Empire supplies? “I support this measure, but not because I think that of Itself it will be of any help to the livestock industry. I do not believe the amount of this tax is going to be passed on at all. The Dominion goods which are to continue to come in free Will have the effect of keeping Argentine prices much as they are, and, as I read the Argentine papers, tlftey also rather anticipate it. Toll From the Dominions. “I regret, too, Chat the Dominions are not to pay some toll for the ute of this market. It is only right that they should pay something, and we in agriculture regret their getting off free. “I suggest that it is poor statesmanship to try to ease the position of the British artisan by trying to annihilate the British peasant. That is what is happening now. Gradually the peasant class is going out of existence as surely as if a foreign army was walking through our lanes, and depopulating our villages.” He pointed out that taxes on their fertilisers range from £4 a ton, and 20 per cent, ad valorem, to £1 a ton; implements and machinery, 30 per cent., shovels, spades, scythes, forks, 15 per cent; hay and grata mowers, the humble plough, planters and seeders, reapers and binders, 15 per cent; wire, 33 1-3 per cent; barbed wire, nails and staples—’“nearly everything we have to buy is taxed in some way or other. “We have not, as farmers, once tried to stop these taxes being put on the goods we buy. We only ask the same treatment. We believe that this protection was necessary for the people working in these trades, and we cannot se6 why we cannot have the same type of protection as they are enjoying.”