British farmers are faced with ruin, the “Daily Express” writes, commenting on Dr. Shiels statement to the League of Nations Mandates Commission on the Palestine Development Scheme. More than 100 have been listed in the bankruptcies in the “London Gazette” since January. But the Government has no financial aid for them. Yet Dr. Shiels, it says, has announced in Geneva that the Government will ask Parliament for authority to guarantee a loan of £2,500,000 for the relief of agriculture in Palestine, where the farmers are Jews and Arabs.
Who could have imagined it as conceivable, the “Express” adds in an editorial, that a British Government, with British agriculture in its present plight, would agree to subscribe £120,000 towards an International Bank formed for the purpose of extending credits to the farmers of Eastern and Central Europe, and to follow this with a pledge to guarantee a loan of £2,500,000 for the relief of agriculture in Palestine? For sixty years British farmers have not been so hard put to it as they are to-day. They appeal to the government for protection. What answer does the Government make? It says, “We can do for you none of the things you want done. But there are two things we can do – we can extend credits to your rival agriculturists in Eastern and Central Europe so that they may grow more, export more, and undersell you even more comfortably and completely than at present, and we can commit ourselves to the Jews and the Arabs of Palestine.
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