AGRICULTURAL POLICY
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Sta,—I think we are all indebted to Mr. Naylor for his letter. He puts his points admirably ; the only difficulty is that he has not read some, or most, of the documents which he discusses, and that he does not meet the case. I shall confine myself to one point, but that is not to say that I do not equally dissent from every other contention which he advances.
It was not I who suggested that there could not be found better employment " for a man growing sugar at the cost (to the taxpayer) of imported sugar over the counter." It was the Greene Committee which recommended the stopping of the home sugar-industry. He will find the statement on page rot of that document, para. 313: "We have considered carefully whether any satisfactory measures would be possible to relieve the dislocation of .agricultural employment which might be caused by the cessation of the cultivation of sugar-beet ; but we regret to say that no method of giving relief to the workers immediately affected which would be administratively practicable has presented itself to us. It is, however, a consideration that by the time these effects would be felt it is possible that a system of Unemployment Insurance for agricultural workers may be in operation."
In a very ecstasy of self-destruction, and in addition to their finding that " the capital invested in factories would be largely lost and the bulk of the plant would become worth no more than scrap value," two out of the three signatories to the Report recommended that the home sugar-industry should be closed down. This, in 1935, when, Heaven knows, The pool of unemployed both for industry and agriculture was full enough, one would have believed, to satisfy the most ardent, and the dangers to our overseas supplies sufficiently self-evident. All this on the ground that the home industry could not produce as cheaply as " Java, Santo Domingo or Peru." Mr. Cyril Lloyd, also a member of the Committee, to the great credit both of his foresight and of his humanity, dissented from this view.
I suppose it is useless to ask any hardened Old Believer to consider what overheads, in a proper costings system, would have to be allowed to provide, for instance, the armies and the battle-fleets required to guarantee continued delivery " from Java." We are likely to know more about that by the end of the war. Or, what the cost of bunging the social services in Santo Domingo or Peru up to the level of those in Yorkshire, or Norfolk, is likely to be. But one would have thought that a respect for the present labour and suffering of East Anglia, let alone gratitude for the very sugar in one's tea (the whole domestic ration is now provided by the home sugar-industry) would have warranted a slightly less de haut en has attitude from anyone discussing today a project framed so deliberately to throw twenty thousand agricultural labourers upon " a system of Unemployment Insurance " which " by
t he time these effects would be felt " might " it is possible " be in operation.
I suppose that some day the advocates of such courses will get into their heads that to turn mud into food, or geological coal-strata into burnable fuel, is a basic process differing somehow from making entries about such things in ledgers ; and that the workers who can do such things are worth preserving. It is, however, a distant hope ; for if the point does not penetrate at present, it is hard to see what stronger combination of circumstances could be devised to hammer it home.—
I am, Sir, yours faithfully, WALTER ELLIOT. Harwood, Bonchester Bridge, Hawick, N.B.
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