218 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 
It is extremely difficult to estimate in terms of money the net results 
of a ‘planned’ agriculture at home, combined with reduced non-Imperial 
imports, but, during the second reading of the 1933 Marketing Act, the 
Minister of Agriculture claimed that, as a result of past policy, ‘ We shall 
be able to show that we have secured a rise of 20-30 per cent. in whole- 
sale prices without a rise of more than 1 or 2 per cent. in retail prices.’ 
On the other hand, the Ministry’s official Agricultural Statistics, 1933, 
Part II, p. 99, reads as follows: ‘In the first six months of 1933 the 
monthly numbers were between 11 and 15 points lower than the year 
before. Later, however, there was a recovery, and in the last quarter of 
the year the index was 7 points or more higher than in the corresponding 
months of the previous year, while a margin of 6 to 7 points was main- 
tained throughout the first quarter of 1934.’ The figures in question, of 
course, refer to commodities sold off farms (valued at {222,000,000 in 
1932~1933) and are, therefore, wholesale. During the last year they have 
averaged some 7 to 8 per cent. above the level of 1932 and 1933. This, 
for Great Britain, is equivalent to an aggregate rise of £15,000,000 to 
£17,000,000 in producers’ receipts as compared with Mr. Elliot’s implied 
rise of £44,000,000 to £66,000,000. If we feel justified in ascribing the 
whole of the officially recorded increase to the influence of the Marketing 
Acts and their supplementary legislation, this is the sum that must be 
added to the grand total (£23,500,000) of subsidies and reliefs previously 
enumerated, for the new policy is supplementary to the old—based upon 
long-term grants—which of course continues side by side with it. We 
thus arrive at a figure approaching £40,000,000 as representing the cumu- 
lative annual benefits derived from the three policies, viz., grants, remis- 
sions, and augmented prices. The new method is far more potent than 
the old, and, although it is arguable to what extent, if any, middlemen’s 
returns have been affected, it concerns most intimately the consumer. 
The direct taxpayer, it should be emphasised, has thereby gained a measure 
of respite at the expense of the indirect. 
Including these price- and quantitative control devices, the home market 
is now in possession of an almost complete battery of economic weapons. 
So far, that is to say during the last three years, the result has been seen 
in this relatively small rise in the (wholesale) price of its products, accom- 
panied by a considerable increase in the proportions of Empire, at the 
expense of foreign, consignments. This has been accomplished at the 
cost of a growing dependence upon outside direction and some expansion 
in the numbers of persons ancillary to the industry. Forms to be com- 
pleted, contracts to be signed, instructions to be obeyed, inspections to 
be suffered—these are the penalties of a planned and a regimented 
industry. 
In the case of potatoes, some hundreds of transgressors were last Spring 
summoned to appear before the management of their Board on charges of 
failing to make returns of stocks, for selling products below the size fixed 
by the regulations, or for rendering inaccurate acreage returns ; fines 
up to {20 were inflicted. The demand for potatoes as human food is, to 
a certain degree, elastic, and the Boards have it in their power, by with- 
drawing small varieties, to raise the price of those in other categories ; 
