Orders of the Day — British Sugar (Subsidy) Bill.

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at on 12 July 1935.

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Photo of Mr James de Rothschild Mr James de Rothschild , Isle of Ely

I understand that on this question my political body has been used as a sort of weapon which has been thrust backwards and forwards between the two Front Benches. I should like to draw the Minister's attention to the fact that I am only a very humble Member and that his argument must, indeed, be very feeble if he relies on my support to convince those who are opposed to him. I am flattered by the allusion which he has made to my ample form and I assure him that it is far ampler in his imagination than it is in reality. I can speak on this subject almost with first-hand knowledge because, like the hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Sir A. McLean), I represent a constituency in which sugar-beet is widely grown. What is attracting me at the present time and what should attract the attention of the House is the fact, mentioned just now by the hon. Member, namely the number of smallholders who are interested in the cultivation of this crop. I am not going into the question of the large acreage which is held by bigger farmers in the Eastern Counties. In my own small constituency alone there are 2,000 smallholders under the county council farming on the average 7 acres each, and everyone of these grows sugar-beet. It is no doubt a matter of pride for the Isle of Ely County Council that, they should have on such a small area so many smallholders, and that those smallholdings should pay, but there can be no doubt that if they cease to grow: sugar-beet—by which at the present time; the smallholders are paying their rents—there would be an end to the extension of smallholdings in the Island.

As the last speaker and other speakers in these debates have pointed out, there is really no alternative crop and that is where the Greene Committee did not give the facts due weight. The Committee naturally examined what justification there was for continuing assistance to the beet-sugar industry as such, but I suggest that this House ought to do more than that. I think we must examine this question within the framework of the general agricultural policy of the country and especially the present agricultural conditions. I am not going into details on the question of what the farmer could put in the place of sugar-beet, and whether it should be potatoes or mange's, because as hon. Members have pointed out the production of potatoes cannot be increased at the present time while mangels are only grown for stock and stock is at a discount just now, both milk and fat stock having become unprofitable, no doubt in spite of the great efforts of the Minister of Agriculture, but possibly because of those efforts. But if there is any crop that can take the place of sugar-beet at the present time it can only be wheat, and that only in the case of the larger farmers where the rotation of crops allows it. There can be no doubt that in that case once more the farmer will be dependent on the wheat subsidy which was granted in 1932 by the National Government.

There is a concrete consideration which commends itself to me. Recently Members belonging to all parties have complained bitterly that the Government had been too niggardly in what they were doing for the distressed areas and in the small sums which were being placed at the disposal of the Commissioners. Today I suggest we are granting a subsidy of the same kind. I submit that the subsidy which is here proposed can be regarded as analogous to that payment—that it can be regarded as preventive instead of curative. I do not like subsidies any more than any Member of my party or any Member of the House, and I wish wholeheartedly when agricultural conditions permit to see this and other crops grown independent of State assistance. I do so especially because I doubt whether beet sugar will ever be self-supporting in competition with cane sugar from oversea. Nevertheless, the present situation makes State assistance necessary, and whatever Government was in office and to whatever party they might belong, they would find it necessary either to continue this assistance or to find another remunerative crop to take the place of sugar beet. I firmly believe that any farmer in this country will be only too glad to adopt any remunerative alternative when it presents itself or when the imagination of the Government fostered by the activities of the Minister can devise means of meeting the emergency.

Now let me say a few words about the Labour Amendment. There is no doubt that one cannot help having some sympathy with it. I have often deplored to this House the method by which the subsidy was administered. I have often deplored the scandalous profits of the factories. I certainly dislike most heartily the method of direct payment to the factories which is used at present and which does not give us any control over the growers' share. I wish indeed that this Measure could have embodied a different method of assistance, but for this season, I realise, there can be no alternative scheme for the farmers. After all, the beet that is affected is now grown. The farmers' prices have been fixed months ago. They were fixed after the Minister's promise of the sub- sidy as it is provided in this Bill, and it is obvious that these contracts which have been entered into cannot be changed now.

But if I have some sympathy with the terms of the Labour Amendment, I have no sympathy whatever with its authors. As I was coming up the stairs to this House to-day, I met the right hon. Member for Swindon (Dr. Addison), and I told him that I should have a few words to say about him. I only regret that he has chosen the opportunity of my making this speech for absenting himself from the House. I realise that the right hon. Gentleman is hungry; so are a great many other Members of his party. The right hon. Member for Swindon—whether he is here or not I must say this—was at the Ministry of Agriculture from 1929 to 1931, and during that period the subsidy that was being paid was on a much higher scale than the subsidy that is proposed to-day. It was paid according to the very inequitable system which the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment to-day deplores, and at that time I begged the right hon. Gentleman and his chief, who to-day is Lord Noel-Buxton, to go into this matter with great care. I begged and implored him repeatedly, I pleaded for investigation, with a view to devising a more equitable mode of administering this subsidy. For two years the right hon. Gentleman was content to do nothing.