POLITICAL COMMENTAR1

Peasants' revolt, 1970

A UBERON WAUGH

The widespread disparagement that has greeted the adoption by farmers of tactics more usually associated with Vietnam demonstrators and superannuated Pakistani students ignores the sad fact that farmers, like students, have absolutely no other sanc- tion to apply. Post-war government agricultural policies have reduced them, through no fault of their own, to the status of parasites on the body politic. Although a withdrawal of the goods and services they supply could, after several months, bring a deterioration in our balance of payments, the margins of solvency in all save large-scale agriculture—where they exist at all—are so slender that all the participants would be bankrupt long before any effective pressure began to be felt.

.Under the present system of deficiency payments, farmers must subsist entirely on government largesse. This arrangement would, under normal economic conditions, be entirely to a Labour government's liking, since it gives the government yet another instrument of economic planning and also helps to foster the illusion, so beloved of Labour's political leaders in the Castle-

Wedgbenn-Wilson mould, that jumped-up schoolteachers are somehow capable of scattering plenty o'er a smiling land ac- cording to their own system of social priorities. One may doubt, of course, whether normal economic conditions are things which can ever apply under a Labour government, and before dismissing the quaint conceit it is worth pointing out the maintenance of the present level of interest rates creates the absolute necessity for in- vestment grants or other forms of govern- ment subsidy in many industries besides agriculture.

The reason that farmers have not featured very high on the Government's list of social priorities may be due in part to the fact that they have been represented by a spec- tacularly ineffective Minister in the person of Mr Cledwyn Hughes. His predecessor, the great Fred Peart, was too much preoccupied with his genocidal foot and mouth campaign against Britain's cattle and sheep to have any time for such things. But the main reason why farmers have never benefited from the Government's compassion, in quite the same way as Ford motor-car workers or MPs, to name but two, was summed up by Mr Joseph Godber during last Monday's debate, when he observed, somewhat ingenuously: 'There are not many hon Members opposite who represent rural con- stituencies.'

Of course, there are many, many Tories who do represent rural constituencies as photographs taken outside the Selsdon Park Hotel during the weekend's great Council of Croydon might have reminded us. Mr God- ber, himself, from Grantham, Mr Willie Whitelaw (firmly identified in the Sunday Times as Lord Jellicoe) from Penrith and the Border, Sir Alec Douglas-Homy from Kinross and West Perthshire—these alone should convince us that a substantial pro- portion of the Conservative party still has muddy boots long before the eye has had time to reach the trouser turn-ups of people

Mr Gordon Campbell, from,Moray and Nairn, and Mr Geoffrey Rippon, from Hex- ham. Which may go some way to explaining why the Tory proposals for agriculture allow not so much as a single offending pea to re- main underneath the feather mattresses. Their political calculation is that housewives will simply not believe Labour politicians who assure them that the levy system will in- volve higher food prices; that when Mr God- ber appears to confirm this prediction, peo- ple will be so paralysed by boredom that nobody will notice what he is saying; and that by the time Mr Heath begins to make himself felt in the election campaign, with resounding exhortations to increase productivity and be proud of our pound, the electorate will already have made up its col- lective mind which way to vote. Farmers, meanwhile, will know on which side their bread is buttered, with promises of a levy system supplemented by deficiency pay- ments, as a rescue net, and production grants continuing as before—belt and braces being offered in addition to self-supporting trousers.

No wonder Labour was reduced to speechlessness during the recent agriculture debate. The plain truth of the matter is that the Tories have got Labour beaten where agriculture is concerned. All that remains to be seen so far as domestic policies are involved is whether Labour's credibility is sufficient to convince housewives and wage-earners that the Tory policy will mean deliberately increased prices in addition to the higher prices which are now accepted as being incidental to modern living. One minor consideration remains: whether anything will be done to help our suffering farmers between now and the election.

Whether or not Mr Wilson will be allowed to do this depends upon Mr Jenkins. He is a committed balance of payments enthusiast. Perhaps even more than these, he is com- mitted to preserving his reputation as the civilised Labour Chancellor who worked. There are those who think that he has the moral fibre to stand up against Mr Wilson and the entire Cabinet, and insist upon an October election. I am not one of them. He would, it is true, be supported by the entire corps of Treasury officials, otherwise known as Mr Jack Diamond, and by the en- tire foreign service, usually called Mr Michael Stewart (if he is still alive). He might even have the support of Messrs Lever, Crosland and Thomson, but he would cer- tainly be opposed by Messrs Healey, Crossman, Callaghan, Shore, Benn, Thomas, by Mrs Castle and by the great Fred Peart.

It is one of the quirks of politics—just as old age pensioners are hobbling in their droves to vote Conservative—that farmers,

by and large, should have decided to oppose the Common Market, although they would profit more immediately and more obviously from it than any other section of the com- munity except some investors. In fact, it represents their only chance of escaping from the present humiliating position in which they find themselves. Mr Godber, in unwonted demagogic fashion, chose to con- centrate on the annual price review, but he did mention the other factors which make life difficult for them at present: credit restrictions, high interest rates and (much less important) the enforced SET loans to the government.

The annual price review may be, for farmers, the chief symbol of the system which oppresses them, and certainly the present Vietnam-style demonstrations—as well as the Commons debate—have been geared to them. But in point of fact even the most generous price review could do little to help cereal farmers, for instance, who would have to wait until late summer to profit. Beef and sheep farmers are in much the same position, and it is only the dairy-farmers, who receive their cheques monthly from the Milk Marketing Board, who would be better off right away.

Agricultural financing has traditionally been divided between the capital account, which in effect comes from bank overdrafts, and current account, which is met by the farmers' simply not paying their bills, and is called merchants' credit. The first is no longer applicable to agriculture while Bank Rate stays anywhere near 8 per cent—it is only in intensive poultry, pig and calf rearing that farmers begin to see a return of that sort. The second is no longer possible because the merchants are unable to give credit as a result of the present restrictions.

While the farmers' present difficulties pro- bably could be met by a vastly increased range of guaranteed prices coupled with vastly increased production grants (these are straight subsidies paid to farmers in con- sideration of their actually having engaged in any farming) the money would have to be found from somewhere, and, as I have said, with Mr Cledwyn Hughes as advocate, farmers do not enjoy a high priority. To judge from Mr Callaghan's remarks over the weekend, the Cabinet intends to take a hard line. Incidentally, I would love to have a look at the profits and loss account and balance- sheet of Mr Callaghan's 100-acre farm in Sussex. It was a curious investment, that, for a former Chancellor of the Exchequer to make.

Equally, the farmers' lot would be im- proved if Bank Rate were reduced—although it would never be reduced enough to make commercial sense of a single combine har- vester—and credit restrictions lifted. Now there are many reasons why Mr Jenkins might reduce Bank Rate and ease credit restrictions between now and the election. but farmers are not one of them.

So terror tactics are all that is left. As a sympathiser with their plight, I hope they will not,take it amiss if I suggest that they have not yet made fullest use of the weapons in their armoury. Manure spreaders have an obvious potential, especially in crowded streets on busy shopping days, but mange! wurzels spread across a motorway or two might be an idea. Many farms are needlessly disfigured by pylons; and until the Nru unilaterally renounces germ warfare, any cattle suffering from ringworm could be put to good use.