On the Hook
TliE total cost of agricultural subsidies for the present financial year has turned out to be close on £80 million more than the original estimate; and it might be thought that the Minister, revealing to the Commons that he re- quires this huge sum to be covered by a supple- mentary estimate, would have been properly con- trite. Not at all. Mr. Soames blames the 'very exceptional circumstances this year, beginning in the spring, when a much increased number of cattle came forward from the spring flush of grass.' The Chancellor of the Exchequer may be begging for increased productivity; but appar- ently when a spring flush of grass encourages it, all that results is embarrassment for the Govern- ment, worry for the Minister of Agriculture and discernible benefit for neither the farmer (whose losses from the glut have to be made good by deficiency payments) nor the consumer (who still pays almost as much as before for his meat).
It is now almost forgotten, but during the life- time of the last Labour Government a Commis- sion sat under the 'chairmanship of Lord Lucas to investigate the whole problem of agricultural marketing. From the complexities of its report one clear point emerged: that every pound saved by efficient marketing could mean not merely ten shillings more to farmers (and by the same token ten shillings less from the body of taxpayers —because subsidies could be reduced), but also ten shillings more for housewives in butchers' bills saved to spend on other products, or to put in their savings account. it followed that govern- ment policy should be designed to streamline. and reduce the cost of, agricultural marketing; for the benefits would then have a cumulatively beneficial effect on the country's economy.
It was too, much to hope, perhaps, that a government, particularly a Conservative Govern- ment, should hasten to incorporate the report of any Commission into the Statute Book; but at least successive Ministers of Agriculture could study the Lucas report and absorb its lessons. Instead, what the Government has done, with perverse ingenuity, is to allow the gap between what the farmer gets for his product and what the consumer pays for it to increase. The present subsidy is nothing more than nor less than a public gift to middlemen—and a particularly un- fortunate present to give them, because it will confirm them in the belief that the more deter- rninedly they hold up prices to the consumer, the larger their profits will become.
Is there—as a Labour MP asked the Minister —.no more sensible way of buying beef from the farmers and selling it to the general public than a system by which neither the farmers nor the general public benefit from increased pro- duction? Mr. Soames replied that the Govern- inCnt did not intend to enter into State trading with meat. This is a curious irrelevancy; for nobody has suggested that the Government should. If Mr. Soames could spare a few moments after his Christmas holidays to study the Lucas report he would see that it suggested not a nationalised concern, but independent, non-profit-making marketing corporations, de- signed to hold the ring between farmer and con- sumer. The experiment has yet to be tried; but the present farcical situation in the meat trade suggests that it deserves a trial.
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