THE BEET SUBSIDY
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—In one paragraph headed " Doom of the Beet Sugar Subsidy,". you.approve of more or less taking away the living on the land from something like 25,000 people--as such would be one of the results of ending sugar beet growing. In your very next paragraph you give your approval to Sir Percy Jackson's scheme for settling families on the land at a cost of at least £750 per family—I wonder whether you would approve of- finding the 25,099 sugar beet victims of Free Trade perversion homes on the land at a cost of £75D per family plus the stupendous capital loss that would be incurred by manufacturers and growers. - The ease for the beet sugar industry will be expressed again and again before your wished for ending of it takes place ; I can only say that unless all other European countries do the same it would be an economic disaster for us to do T. L. Dees. Yours truly,
12 Thurloe Place; S.W. 7. . - [Let us take our correspondent's figure of 25,000 men. To settle them on the land at t.750 a head would cost a capital suns of less than 219-,000,000.- -So far about £50,000,009 has been spent on the beet subsidy. To put the matter in another• - way, • interest and amortization on 119,000,000 would cost at the outside £1,000;090 - a year. The subsidy is costing .• £7,000;000 a year. There is Plenty- of margin here for growers and -manufacturers, even if they could make good any claim for compensation for the loss of a subsidy which was never meant to' be permanent.—En., The -Spectator.]
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