Letters to the Editor
THE N.F.U. AND BROADCASTING [To the Editor of the SPECTAToR.] Sin,—The National Farmers' Union rejoinder to Sir W. Beach Thomas will not impose on readers who saw the criticism of the N.F.U. in the Countryman to which Sir William refers. Those who did not may be interested in the
following extract concerning the absurd resolution it sent to the Press :-
" The full wording of the resolution was so inept that the Times and other papers modified it. But before that there had been a breathing of fire and slaughter over the telephone to the B.B.C. and attempts to intimidate it by threats of ' questions in the House of Commons,' not to speak of an arrogant proposal that the N.F.U. should examine the MSS. of Talks before they were delivered ! That only a few of the many' acknowledged authorities who, at the instance of the Ministry of Agriculture, have spoken over the Wireless on rural subjects have farmed on commercial lines, that some of the men of most agricultural insight from Jethro Tull to Arthur Young are not associated with agricultural money-making does not matter very much. What does matter is the assumption of humourless persons in positions of responsibility at Bedford Square that, in a country of 37,000,000, of which the rural popula- tion numbers 7,000,000, the men more or less associated with land 1,000,000; the farmers themselves 300,000 and the farmers who care enough about the organization of their calling to pay their N.F.U. subscriptions less than 100,000, nobody shall be allowed to express an opinion on our chief industry and the welfare of Rural England but farmers or peri3ons whose MSS. have been blue-pencilled by or written to the approval of the N:F.U. ! The grotesqueness of the proposal might be aeyeloped by recalling the fact that whether it be agricultural machines, manures, varieties of seeds or methods, the agricultural industry has been, throughout its history, largely indebted for invention and improvement to men who were not farmers at all. For even their Union, farmers had to go to school to the labourers."
• It is not only Sir William Beach Thomas who has told the N.F.U. that it has made itself ridiculous. Sir Henry Rew and
farmers writing in the most largely circulated of the agricul- tural weeklies have done the same thing. This criticism follows upon plain speaking about the N.F.U. by Sir Horace Plunkett (Unionist), Sir -Francis Acland (Liberal), and the Scottish Farmer (Independent), a London morning journal (Unionist), the writer of a recent paper at the Farmers' Club, and the author of the newest book on the agricultural situation, Latter Day Rural England.—I am, Sir, &e., A MEMBER OF THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY.
Previous page
