STABILISING PRICES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 March 1939, Page 3

STABILISING PRICES

BRITISH DAIRY INDUSTRY. PROTECTION BY GOVERNMENT. When addressing a meeting at Durham, England, recently, the Minister of Agriculture, Mr W. S. Morrison, stated that the Government was doing everything possible to protect the British farmer from overseas competition. ’ With the imposition of duties on l?eef and veal last year, he said, mutton, lamb and pig meat became the only significant exceptions to the Government’s tariff policy.'The Government would prefer that responsibility forsecuring stable conditions in the United Kingdom market should be assumed by producers in the overseas countries concerned, along the lines suggested at the Empire Producers’ Conference, but would not depart from the principle, established at Ottawa, that the home produper is entitled to first place in the home market and that this would be secured by tariff impositions where necessary. Mr Morrison concluded by saying that “the Ministry has unfortunately been prevented by various causes from putting into execution long-term plans for the dairy industry but a bill to be introduced early next session will make provision for safeguarding the industry against serious falls in manufacturing prices.”