FARMERS AND THE ROAD FUND.
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FARATERS are protesting against the threatened raid on the Road Fund by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but they do not view the matter quite as other people do. Mr. Geoffrey Peto, M.P. (Mr. Peto was the successful mover of the amendment to the Rating and Valuation Bill securing an annual concession for farmers of ±600,000 on their rates), writing from a distinctly agricultural angle, says that the present administration of the Fund is prejudicial to agriculturists, some of his reasons being as follow ;—New main roads from towns bring more chars-it-banes and other motor traffic on to the rural roads; the surface of new roads is dangerous to horses and cattle ; the promised grant towards rural roads is only £750,000 out of £16,000,000; the present policy encourages heavy road transport in competition with the railways, who help farmers because they are big ratepayers ; road competition results in heavy railway rates for agricultural produce.
Mr. Peto wants to know what benefits the present administration of the Road Fund confers on agriculturists to outweigh these disadvantages, and suggests the abolition of the Ministry of Transport as an expensive post-war luxury and the transfer of the Road Fund, preferably to the local authorities for the maintenance of roads and the relief of rates, or, failing that, to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the maintenance of roads and rate relief. The National Farmers Union is much concerned about the matter and, in connection with the recent byelection in Suffolk, where the new Minister for Agriculture (Col. Guinness) was returned, the president wrote that "the threatened raid on the Road Fund seems likely to inflict still further injustice upon agriculturists."
The Lincolnshire branch of the union unanimously adopted a resolution expressing intense indignation that the Cabinet Committee on Economy had endorsed the Treasury's proposal, and points nut how imperative it is that larger grants should be made. Branches of the union generally have taken the matter up very seriously and promise strong opposition.