1922.] 



Sir Arthur Bosca wen's Address. 



675 



But beyond all things, the question of distribution must be over- 

 hauled. He made no general charge against the middlemen that 

 they were making excessive profits. When we saw that English 

 wheat was selling to-day at little more than pre-war prices, 

 while bread w r as costing little less than twice pre-war prices, 

 there must be something radically wrong with our system of 

 distribution. There were too many persons and too many 

 interests interposed between the producer and the consumer. 

 Here he thought the farmers had the remedy chiefly in their own 

 hands, and the Government could do little. Co-operation ap- 

 peared to be the solution. It was this difficulty between whole- 

 sale and retail prices that caused the chief trouble to-day. The 

 farmer, unable to see how to make a profit, attempts to do so 

 by cheapening the cost of production, and the only item where 

 he can secure a reduction worth mentioning is labour, which 

 accounts for nearly 50 per cent, of his costs. But the labourer, 

 owing to high retail prices, can scarcely live on a wage less than 

 he is getting now. There is the difficulty. The farmer says : 

 " I cannot pay more than 25s. a week," and the labourer says : 

 " T cannot live on less than 30s." — both appeal to the Govern- 

 ment. The Government is powerless to act, except by giving a 

 subsidy which would in effect be a subsidy to wages. We should 

 be getting back to the system of the old Poor Laws, when wages 

 were directly subsidized by the ratepayer, a system which was 

 condemned by all parties and was thoroughly unsound. He had 

 seriously thought of trying to reintroduce a subsidy on arable 

 land as a temporary expedient for one year, provided that the 

 farmers continued to employ as mam^ men as now and to pay 

 not less than the present wages. His idea was to tide over an 

 acute crisis, but he did not think that the plan was possible. 

 Other industries, for example, the mining industry, which was 

 suffering seriously to-day, would claim the same assistance, 

 and we should not be sure that the experiment once made would 

 not have to be repeated next year. 



All this he knew was but cold comfort, but they must fight 

 on and make the best of the situation. He did not believe the 

 depression would last. He believed the present distress was due 

 to temporary causes, the first being the thoroughly uneconomic 

 methods we employed during the War. and the second, the col- 

 lapse of foreign exchanges, which made this country the dump- 

 ing ground for the superfluous products of the whole world. 

 These causes would gradually disappear, and he thought a 

 period of high prices was not very far distant. In the meantime. 



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