Mr. Elliot's Milk Scheme Mr. Elliot's plans for the rehabilitation
of the milk industry were promulgated almost simultaneously with the announcement that the beet sugar subsidy, amounting to close on £4,000,000 a year, is to be maintained for another twelve months. When the wheat subsidy, the bacon schemes, the beef scheme, the hop scheme (in regard to which a complete monopoly !.1,4 about to be established) are taken into account, the day is clearly gone when agriculture can be treated as a disregarded industry. The milk scheme proposes to deal with a state of glut by offering for manufactured milk guaranteed prices which must result in still greater production. And since the increase will be in butter and cheese, it must mean intensified competition with the Dominions, which Australia and New Zealand will hardly appreciate. The new subsidies are theoretically only Treasury advances to the Milk Marketing Board, but the prospect of prices rising by 1936 to a figure that would make repayment possible is highly doubtful. The other half of the scheme, which proposes to drain off the surplus production by promoting increased consumption, whether through pro- viding cheap milk for schools or through a Drink More Milk campaign, is far sounder. But, as an article on a later page shows, it is imperative that the milk supplied to the children be pure milk. The repayable advances will amount to £3,000,000 or more, and the grants for the pure milk and more milk campaigns to £1,750,000.
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