M.—AGRICULTURE 219 
acreage restrictions should then prevent any tendency to overproduction. 
So far, potato prices, whilst not soaring, have substantiated economic 
theory, while heavy duties on imported ‘ earlies’ have buttressed the 
whole structure. 
The milk industry has perforce become accustomed to receiving, 
through eleven ‘ pools,’ payments calculated in pence per gallon to two 
places of decimals, and varying with the status of the producer, the season, 
the locality, and the intended utilisation of individual consignments ; 
many producers and a larger proportion of consumers remain in ignorance 
of the destination and of the source respectively of a commodity whose 
production and handling are vital to health. Significantly, no provisions 
for limiting output have at present been imposed, and the Board’s 
energies have mainly been devoted to increasing the consumption of 
fresh milk at the expense of that unremuneratively disposed of for 
manufacturing purposes ; the average price secured by producers rose 
last year by about a penny a gallon, but has since declined by perhaps 
a halfpenny. 
Producers responded too well when first invited to contract for the 
supply of high-grade bacon pigs, and, if prices were to be maintained, 
limitation of supplies was essential. When faced with markedly higher 
retail prices consumers became restive, there was evidence that demand 
was shifting to alternative commodities, and simultaneously the European 
exporter expressed open dissatisfaction with his reduced opportunities. 
In these circumstances, the change of policy announced last June and 
July met with complete agrarian approval. Levies raised on foreign 
bacon are now to be used to maintain, or to augment, the price of pigs 
at home and, incidentally, a tariff on imported beef will in due course 
Operate in a similar manner. It thus looks certain that the movement 
of these substantial economic straws indicates a general change in direction 
of the political or administrative winds. 
_ Certain branches of the industry, such as fruit, vegetables, and poultry, 
have rejected regulating schemes, preferring, presumably, to trust, in 
‘conjunction with specially granted fiscal protection, to those insular 
advantages that they possess. 
_ British agriculturists, having witnessed for long the evils of neglect 
and /aissez faire, would have been foolish to refuse, at any rate for a time, 
this form of assistance on the ground that it involved certain sacrifices 
on their own part, and, when looking around at other occupations, includ- 
ing those of their fellows in many different countries, were wise to accept 
compulsory co-operation. For, as with armaments, so with industry, it 
appears unfortunately at the moment to be the accepted rule, si vis pacem 
bellum para—if the primary producer wants enhanced prices and there- 
after stability, he must seek both by outbidding in tariffs, subsidies, and 
exchange restrictions, the aims of foreign countries. Agriculture will 
assuredly be the last industry spontaneously to support the reintroducton 
of Free Trade. 
__ The passage of a hundred years has witnessed a vast change in the 
treatment of social and economic problems, and nowhere is this more 
marked than in agriculture, where consideration has ousted severity and 
