LABOUR AND THE SUGAR-BEET SUBSIDY
• [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] • SIR,—In your comments on the recent debate on the Sugar Industry (Reorganisation) Bill, you ridicule • Mi.:,'Wtilte'r Elliot's contention that the Subsidy was an issue atthellefieral. Election. Surely you will agree, at any rate,* that Vety'feW issues of public policy received more discussion and publicity in the six months preceding the election than' that' Of the Sugar Beet Industry. In the debate on the Bill's Second Reading,' -Mr. 'Ethel very truly stated that "many scores of thousands of 'Labour` votes were collected on a promise to continue the Beet' Sugar Subsidy." As one who spoke and voted fin' the Labont Party in East Anglia, I fully agree with him: The Labour -Party just as much responsible for the subsidy as the Ccinsertati'veS: ' They initiated it in 1924, and made it a plank in the Iabour" election platform in the General Election • of that year': in 1929-31 the second Labour Government. continued • -the- subsidy and its responsible Ministers continued' to introduce'' the estimates for it in the House. Only a few weeks betbrethe recent election the Labour Conference at Brighten adePted • an Executive report which stated that the stopPageof 'the subsidy would seriously dislocate cultivation and Iivesfeek production over a wide area," would " cause a serious increase - in unemployment " and " would probably be folloWed by an • increase in price (of sugar) to the consumer." • On -these grounds the Conference agreed to the continuance of the" subsidy and the duty abatements on home-grown beet sugar.
The attitude of Oppositionspokesnien such as Mr.Alextinder in now opposing the subsidy as a " ramp " and a "piiblie' scandal " can hardly be described as honest, or even intelligent, bearing in mind the fact that Mr. Alexander was a member of the Labour Cabinet in 1929-31 and a member of the Committee which drew up the report adopted by the Brighton Conference I
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