Again – surpluses

Further evidence that Canada is'piling up surpluses of foodstuffs is had from a speech delivered by Dr. J. M. Nesbitt, head of the department of dairy science at the University of Manitoba. He was speaking during the annual meeting of the Dairy Farmers of Canada.

Dr. Nesbitt told the farmers that they must drastically cut the number of farmers engaged in the dairy business. His reason: dairy farmers were not able to make a decent living because there were too many of them producing too much butter, milk, cheese and other dairy products.

It is a fact that the stocks of surplus butter and milk are reaching staggering proportions, the butter surplus alone standing at almost 200 million pounds. According to the 1956 census there were 398,600 Canadian farms with milk cows. According to Dr. Nesbitt there is room for only 86,000 dairy farmers making a good living by meeting the actual demand for milk.

"I would like to emphasize", says Dr: Nesbitt, "that I am not suggesting that we are going to force farmers to leave the farm. We must arouse in these people an eager desire to leave the farm."

Well, Dr. Nesbitt, there are vast numbers of people across Canada who would dearly love to get their hands on a fair share of that milk and butter and cheese which you say cannot be disposed of. We here in the Union of Electors could show you from our files the names and addresses (hundreds of them) of people who are not getting enough to eat. They do without butter and cheese and milk — yes, and meat. They are lucky if they can get enough dried fish and potatoes and molasses and a bit of bread with which to keep life in themselves and their families.

Let a dividend be issued to each citizen and then the so-called intellectuals like "Dr." Nesbitt will not have to come up with such nonsensical propositions.

The time may not be too far off when we shall indeed have a surplus of farmers. But the starving poor of the West and the famished nations of the east bear eloquent testimony to the fact that such a time has not yet arrived.

Such goods pile up not because there is no "demand" but because the people who desperately need them do not have enough of that man-made thing we call purchasing power. Let there be more purchasing power, let there be a Social Credit dividend, and then watch the "surpluses" melt away!