AGRICULTURAL PRICES.: Memorandum by the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Home Secretary.

the duration of hostilities, whether with Germany or Japan. A Four year production programme had been instituted and it was clearly desirable to devise an improved system of fixing prices which would avoid a recurrence of acrimonious disputes and would give farmers an assurance of reasonable stability over the four year period without involving the Government in commitments for automatic and possibly quite unjustified increases in prices. 10. This is the task to which we have addressed ourselves in consultation with the farmers' and workers' representatives and we are now in a position to recommend to our colleagues proposals which in our view will achieve the desired result and enable the Government (notwithstanding their inability at the present time to formulate and announce a permanent post-war policy for agriculture) to retain throughout the difficult period up to the summer of 1948 the active co-operation of the industry in producing the food that the nation wants.