NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #20/NN_1992_20.iso/spool/bit/listserv/history/4863

Text File | 1992-09-11 | 1.4 KB | 30 lines

Comments: Gated by [e-mail]
Path: sparky!uunet!paladin.american.edu!auvm!LINGUA.CLTR.UQ.OZ.AU!MED
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.history
Date:         Fri, 11 Sep 1992 14:36:32 +1000
Sender:       History <[e-mail]>
From:         Marion Diamond <[e-mail]>
Subject: re: Clinton Administration?
Comments: To: [e-mail]
Lines: 18

Denis,
George Bush's promise of subsidies to wheat producers in America
don't look like the Manchester School at work from here (a wheat-
growing competitor which doesn't subsidise grain).
On a related issue, has it ever struck anyone that there is a
fascinating parallel between the Japanese determinatio to protect
its rice producers, and the 19C Corn Laws?  Both were based partly
on the need to protect conservative rural electors, both were
continued long after their respective countries had become far too
powerful economically to need such protection, both increase/d the
costs of labour for the manufacturers (and artificially reduced the
supply of land for housing), and both were/are based partly on
a perceived fear of starvation which has continued for 40+ years since
their involvement in global war, and partly on a quasi-religious
identification with this particular grain as the staff of life,
which should not be surrendered to foreign producers.
Marion Diamond
[e-mail]