Marketing Boards

Abstract

THE ‘endless adventure of government, has become the problem of problems, the real riddle of the Sphinx. The reason is immediate fear—fear both of war and of peace, Organisation is essential; there are two methods—to organise the world at once, or to organise smaller units and gear them up to each other as soon as time and hard thinking will permit. Both methods are required. The States of the British Commonwealth of Nations have many economic problems in common, and the need of some standing organisation to examine these problems has been repeatedly felt. Mr. Bruce, formerly Prime Minister of Australia, has suggested that some of the best minds available should be applied exclusively to these formidable tasks, particularly in view of the emergence of British agriculture as one of the great and growing agricultures of the Empire. Mr. Elliot greatly hopes that the work will be undertaken. But an organisation which holds within itself the possibility of just such a development—the Empire Marketing Board—has within the last few months been brought to an end. The failure of some of these attempts, the difficulties of others, do not exonerate us from the necessity for making fresh trials. Let us try marketing boards to cover the United Kingdom if we cannot get one to govern the world, if we cannot get one to span the Empire. In agriculture we are working on the lines of self-government in industry. We are trying to reconcile the producers and the customers, the industrial and the political aspects of the nation, which can no more be separated than the front and the back of a man's head.