72 



Government Assistance to HoRTicrLTiiRE. [Apr., 



cannot find judgment nor give financial prudence. It can make 

 knowledge available but the acquirement must rest with the 

 individual. Nor can it — and this seems to be the chief note in 

 much criticism that has been passed on the Ministry — deliver 

 growers from the necessity of facing up to the competition 

 of produce from overseas. The fiscal policy is for the country 

 through Parliament to settle. 



Association of G-rowers. — There is. a range of subjects in 

 which growers in combination can do what the individual acting 

 alone cannot. 



Among these are questions of railway and other transport, 

 markets, matters requiring agreement upon a common policy 

 for the industry. Growers, in co-operation with the Ministry, 

 can combine for conducting experiment and research as is done 

 at Lea Valley and Mailing. Last but not least, growers can 

 always participate in the exhilarating sport of criticising and even 

 of fighting the Government. There is still left a wide territory 

 which can only be occupied by Government action. 



Government Action. — But Government action does not neces- 

 sarily mean — though it is generally taken to mean — action of 

 the policeman type coming with a summons in his pocket- 

 There is that wider and much more general police action of pro- 

 tection against the aggressor, of safeguarding interests menaced 

 by the evil doer, and there is action of the " fire engine " type 

 which comes to preserve property threatened by destruction. 

 Whatever in the past may have given occasion for suspicion of 

 Government action and given rise to resentment of the visit of 

 an. inspector as an invasion of the liberty of the subject, it is 

 the anxious desire of the Ministry to dispel suspicion and to 

 prove itself to be the friend of every section of the industry, the 

 co-operator in every useful development, the protector of its 

 interests against every assailant — its eyes in the investigation 

 of problems and its intelligence wing in research. 



To secure that this shall be so, elaborate arrangements have 

 been made for frequent consultation between the Ministry and 

 representatives from all branches of the industry. There is the 

 Horticultural Advisory Council with its Sub-Committees of 

 Nursery, Fruit and Vegetable Growing. Glass House, Marketing 

 and Distribution, Bee Keeping and Willow Growing. 



At the foundation of a horticultural policy is the question of 

 statistics. Probably no industry in the country stands in such 

 an unfurnished condition in this respect as does that of horti- 

 culture. That the industry is important — that it represents the 



