The Milk Dispute The conflict between the Milk Board and
the Central Milk Distributive Committee—that is between the' interest of the ,farmers who produce the milk and that of the wholesalers and retailers through whom it reaches the consumer—rouses strong feeling on both sides.; and the public will be fortunate if no interruption of its supplies results. Observers outside the trade will take note of three. facts : (a) the price of milk in Great Britain to the consumer is much higher than anywhere else in Europe ; the, distributors. are exceedingly prosperous ; (e) the farmers are. not. In the light of-them the Milk Board's decision not to raise the cost to the consumer, but to give the farmer. a rather better price at the expense of the distributor, has at least a prima fade justification. Whether the Committee of Investi- gation, to which the issue must now be referred, will take that view, it would be idle to prophesy. Funda- mentally, much of the trouble goes back to the past • .policy of the State in Great Britain. By letting tillage go and driving agriculture to rely. almost entirely on milk production, it threw the main burden of sustaining the 80s. minimum wage on that one of our agricultural products which for social reasons it is most desirable should be cheap. • *'
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