A GIFT FOR TORIES Mr. John Stewart, the Labour candidate
for South Norfolk, can count himself unlucky. Just as his by-election campaign was getting into its stride, his Party published its statement of policy on agricultural marketing. Let it be said in favour of this lamentable document that its proposals are not so foolish' as they sound. Some of them are derived from the recom- mendations of the Lucas Committee, which reviewed the whole subject after the war, and delivered itself of a surprisingly sane report. After examining the conflicting claims of laissez faire, of producer marketing organisations, and of state con- trol, the report rejected all three of them with urbane contumely, and plumped instead for the setting up of inde- pendent commissions for marketing purposes. This latest Labour statement is clearly attracted by the notion of com- missions, but it cannot resist depriving them of their chief value — independence — by insistence on close ministerial supervision. There is also talk of bulk-buying—in fact, the whole statement is redolent of the political controversies of the straitened forties, which are irrelevant today, and which are best forgotten. Nobody could conceivably be attracted to vote for policies thus expressed; but Mr. Stewart will be lucky indeed if many electors do not vote against him, simply out of distaste for the statement, with its irritating emphasis on restrictions, regulations and controls. Rationing is not to come with these controls, the Labour Party assures us. But we would not be at all surprised if it arose out of them.
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