TAKEN TO TASK

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 July 1938, Page 7

TAKEN TO TASK

BRITISH PRIME MINISTER ON FOOD SUPPLIES POSITION OF AGRICULTURE AT HOME. PROTESTS BY CONSERVATIVES. (By Telegraph—Press Association. Copyright.) LONDON, July 5. The Prime Minister, Mr Chamberlain, has agreed to receive a deputation of agricultural Members of the House of Commons tomorrow to discuss the implications of his statement in his speech at Kettering on Saturday concerning Britain’s food supply. Mr Chamberlain declared: “The idea that we can be starved out in waitime seems to me entirely fallacious. We can depend on our navy to keep the trade routes open, thus enabling us to import food and raw materials indefinitely.” As a result of this speech a meeting was held last night of Conservative private members of the House of Commons committee, at which Mr Chamberlain’s declaration was strongly criticised as being detrimental to British agriculture. Referring in his speech to the assertion that all the food Britain needed should be grown at home, the Premier said: "This would ruin the Empire and foreign countries, which are dependent on our markets, and destroy their purchasing power.”

This statement has greatly pleased Dominions representatives, but has angered British farmers and members of the House of Commons representing agricultural constituencies.