Agricultural Policy The meeting at Lincoln last week in which
an audience of 3,000 farmers continuously booed the Minister of Agri- culture for an hour and a half gave striking expression to popular dissatisfaction with the Government's agricultural policy ; but, unfortunately, it is doubtful if the farmers have anything better to offer. Whatever their griefs, they cannot expect to command much sympathy if they merely continue on the one hand to demand increased subsidies and protection, and on the other to reject attempts to increase efficiency, in production or distribution, as "Government interference" and "half-baked Socialism." If the farmers would accept a measure of planning in agriculture they would find more general support for their attack on the Govern- ment's policy of mulcting the rest of the country to keep the farmers on their unsteady feet by a series of emergency measures. One essential condition of a successful long-term policy is to find some common measure between the economic needs of the farmer and the nutritional needs of the urban workers. The measure of the Government's failure is that neither of these needs is satisfied at present ; and the Govern- ment would be wise to set up an authoritative and representa- tive Commission to report on how they can be harmonised. * * * *
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