The Daily News. THURSDAY, MAY 3. A MOMENTOUS DEPARTURE.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 May 1917, Page 4

The Daily News. THURSDAY, MAY 3. A MOMENTOUS DEPARTURE.

In his recent great speech the British' •Prime Minister outlined the steps taken by the Government departments to deal with the food problem. The fanners | had been given a guarantee, so hail! their laborers; and after feverish activity in the last months, Britain had a million acres of fresh land under cultivation, which meant an addition of two million tons of food. The Government was taking no chances, and three million fresh acres of land were being put into cultivation for harvesting in 1818, and Mr. Lloyd George was able to give the assurance that, even without a ,ton of food being imported from abroad, no one could starve. This is perhaps the most significant point in » speech bristling with important statements. It is a sweeping and far-reaching change, of national policy. It sounds the death-knell of the Free Trade policy that has governed Britain for the past seventy years. It means that never again will Britain be allowed to become absolutely dependent upon imported food. The present war situation has conclusively shown that the nation can never 1 ; be safe without a food reserve, provided by the utmost yield of its own soil. The Free Traders, in initiating their policy never invisaged their country at war; free trade they held to be an insurance against war, for whcwould want to fight "a Britain that allowed every other country free ingress to her markets in all parts of the world?' But they reckoned without an unscrupulous, ambitious Germany, bent upon taking a short-cut to World dominance. They did not believe either that home agriculture would languish as it did. Indeed, great Freo Trade thinkers like Adam Smith believed that agricultural prosperity must lie the basis of all national well-being, and never ought to be injured or displaced by any other influence. Malthus advocated free tra<le, maintaining, however, that agriculture must be upheld at any

price, by duties or otherwise, whilst Charles 'Villicrs, called tlic :P!arliaiiieiitary "Father of Free Trade," laughed to scorn the mad notion that imported wheat could ever bo more than a fraction of the homo supply. Sir 'Robert Peel himself assured tilts farmers that there iwas no danger to home cultivation from foreign importation—no real risk to the safety and greatness of British tillage. What) happened? The fertile land of the 'Homeland, the original home of scientific farming, retrograded every year, tilt'li giving way to grass pasture; the agricultural population dwindling away, the best leaving for other countries where the opportunities were greater and the returns surer. Take the growing of wheat , alone. In the year l'Sda Britain produced 22,000,000 quarters :md imported 2,W0,000 quarters; in 1014 the home production had fallen to 7,300,000 quarters and the importations had grown to 29,220,000 quarters. In ISJ2, Britain jwas nearly-sufficing. Three years ago she was utterly dependent upon shipping to bring the necessities of life. Mr. 'Lloyd-Ueorge has sot himself the stupendous task of reversing the order, and who, knowing his dynamic energy and conquering wilt, will doubt his success? The only regret is that Mr. Lloyd George was not in the saddle two years earlier. Then he would have provided for the food emergency. It was known to every student of European affairs at Home that in case of a long war the German' submarine campaign against our shipping would he the most serious danger that had' ever threatened not merely Britain's national power, but the very life of its people, classes and masses alike. A committee under Lord Milner was appointed.s, It recommended guaranteed prices in order to encourage and warrant the farmer to increase to the utmost tho growth of home-grown food. That was in July, 1945, nearly two years ago. Yet nothing was done. Why? This urgent matter was banned by; some of Mr Asquith's Free Trade colleagues simply because the committee's recommendations ran counter to thejr pet theories! This neglect hastened the end of the old regime, but it is not saving Britain from tho danger of starvation as a result of the submarine campaign.- It was little short of criminal this neglect of precautions to ensure food supplies being available because of belief in, and adherence to, an abstract dogma in a time of crisis. But it is the British way. We invariably blunder at first, and really don't deserve to succeed. But we get there, only the price wo pay for our lack of prevision is tremendous. Mr. Lloyd Oeorge was faced with two things'—tilie necessity for guaranteed prices and the equal necessity for a minimum wage. Without tho first there there eould he no security; without the second'no justice. The Prime Minister did'not hesitate. Ho guaranteed tho prices for fivo years and he fixed tho laborers' minimum wage at 25s per week. At these rates the farmer, the experts state, will -bo able to- pay the minimum wage with a reasonable profit to himself. He is content with this, and he ought to have no less. By these means the Prime Minister is laying tlie foundations of a new structure of society on the land, and there will arise in the future a new British yeomanrjt, heartened, nourished, able to hold their heads up with the men of the soil from overseas, no more depressed, ehfee'bled, bullied and broken in spirit. As the London Observer putsit:-

The enduring great thing for the coun- i try is that an age of folly mid neglect is over, and that an age of regeneration, has begun. There can be no turning jback in the new paths. Farmers iriav fcc that security has come to stay. Tha official guarantees may be nominally Jimited to six years; the 'moral guarantee is permanent. That follows from the whole political and 1 economic consequences of the present measures, •from the lessons of the war, from the whole trend of the time. (Rural organisation on the Irish model has yet to be developed on this side. Agricultural reformers have work entwgh in sight to employ them for years, but even now the main part of their idream is fulfilled. The plough-habit will foe gradually recovered where it has been lost. Every furrow driven a,sain through land that had not been broken in human recollection will be the symbol of a new way of national life and thought, every acre sown anew will help to fill the granaries of our is-land-citadel. and every stretch of land won iback from pasture to tilth will be again the mother of men.