§ 40. Mr. ANDERSONasked whether, in view of the advances in the price of sugar, equal to 100 per cent., the Government are taking steps to cultivate and develop the production of British-grown sugar beet; and whether it is proposed to erect beet factories in selected districts and to etablish co-operation between the State and the growers?
§ Sir HARRY VERNEYThe present price of sugar is abnormal, and, presumably, temporary. I am not at present prepared to say whether, in the cultivation of beet or in the subsequent stages of sugar production, we could compete successfully in normal times with Continental countries, where there is an abundant supply of very cheap labour available, and in any case we could not hope to produce 559 here more than a small proportion of our requirements of sugar. It is an intricate economic problem, upon which the Board await a report from Mr. C. S. Orwin, of the Oxford Institute for Research in Agricultural Economics.