CONFIDENTIAL
47
Close ties
I can assure you that we are not going to forget our responsibilities in this hemisphere. Nor are we, in Britain, as a Government or a people going to neglect your problems in relation to our application for membership. No one who thinks about this at all can ignore the historical background to the New Zealand- United Kingdom relationship. Our ties are not only ones of loyalty to the Queen— The Queen of Great Britain and The Queen of New Zealand-or of related institutions, and of close and conscious kinship.
They have also been very close since the last quarter of the 19th century, in economic terms. We know how very dependent New Zealand is on her exports of lamb and dairy products to us. And we have recognised from the outset that unless adequate arrangements are made for your dairy industry, your farmers face grave difficulties; perhaps, as you have said Sir, you may even use a stronger term-disaster-in many cases.
We realise that this is not simply a balance of payments problem—but that is important of course-but also for you a social and human problem. My visit here, if I may say so, has enabled me to see these problems not just in terms of statistics- often they confuse me, and often confuse sometimes a lot of other people-but in human terms because that is what really matters. That is why I was so anxious to come here--and to come quickly-and see for myself.
Acceptance of EEC policy
Now you know, Sir, neither we nor the previous Government have ever hidden the fact from you or from our own public, that we accept the common agricultural policy as part of the existing fabric of the European Communities we are aspiring to join. We did not create the common agricultural policy, but we must accept it if we want to join, and we have declared our willingness so to do.
The common agricultural policy reflects the interests of the farming populations of the six founder nations, and so we can all understand why it is so jealously defended. After all we know very well every country in the world has a problem of in some way maintaining and protecting its own agriculture, to deal with their own farming communities.
But many people in the present Community-and as I am sure Mr. Marshall can endorse and is well aware of-are highly conscious of the serious anomalies. that that policy has produced, particularly as far as surpluses are concerned, and I think there is a growing determination on the part of the Communities to remove or reduce these as soon as possible. But as of this moment that is their policy and their Community. And we must accept this as it stands at this moment.
Moreover, I do not think we should ignore the fact that farming populations in Community Europe as it now exists have been very substantially reduced in recent years. They are making their own efforts, as we have made in Britain. and you have made them here to reconstruct and reorientate their agricultural industries in the best possible way.
Some changes
I do not believe that it is possible to expect dramatic changes in the common agricultural policy in the immediate future. But I do believe that time may well bring some changes in this, as in other, sectors. Meanwhile it undoubtedly creates real problems for you-in a different way it does for us in Britain-in the context of our application for membership and I do believe that this fact is well recognised
CONFIDENTIAL