FURTHER PROVSIOXS OF THE CORN PRODUCTION ACT I917 77 



d) The provisions of the Act which restrict the raising of agricultural 

 rents do not apply to Ireland, where agrarian conditions are so diverse 

 from those in Great Britain that they would not be appropriate. 



e) The amounts payable by or to an occupier who has been super- 

 seded, under this Act, for failure to cultivate his land as directed, will be 

 determined in Ireland, in default of agreement, in accordance with the pro- 

 visions of the lyandlord and Tenant Act, 1870. The I^ord Ivieutenant in 

 Council may further modify the provisions of the Act as to the enforcement 

 of proper cultivation for the purpose of adapting them to schemes of tillage 

 or systems of tenure in force in Ireland. 



/) The " Dublin Gazette " is substituted for the " lyondon Gazette " 



§ 4. General Considerations underlying the Act. 



In the foregoing paragraphs and in the article in our October number 

 we have outlined all the main provisions of the Corn Production Act, 1917. 

 They are an attempt to deal with a problem which has arisen in the course 

 of two hundred years : in the beginning of the eighteenth century the 

 United Kingdom produced enough wheat to make bread for its own popu- 

 lation ; in the beginning of the twentieth century it imported four fifths of 

 the wheat it consumed. This dependence on imports has increased the cost 

 of the war, aggravated the difficult problem of regulating foreign exchange, 

 and absorbed an undue portion of the tonnage of the merchant navy when 

 this has been sorely needed for other purposes. These facts led to the appoint- 

 ment in 1916 of a Sub-Committee of the Reconstruction Committee to 

 consider the need of increasing home-grown supplies of food in the interest 

 of national security and to report upon the methods of effecting such in- 

 crease. The committee's report resulted in the Act we have examined. 



The committee gave it as their opinion that the adoption of such an 

 agricultural policy as the Act implies will lead to the production within 

 the United Kingdom of much of the food that is now imported. They did 

 not indeed claim that it is possible to grow at home enough food for the whole 

 British population — for that there are in our islands too many mouths and 

 too few acres; but they considered that food production can be enormously 

 increased by better tillage and more farming. They believed moreover 

 that the production of cereals can be largely increased not only without 

 diminishing but even while increasing the production of meat and milk. 



The Act is explicitl}^ temporar}^ : it is to continue in force only until 

 1922 unless Parliament make provision for its prolongation. The commit- 

 tee recommended that prices comparable with those whicji ruled during the 

 war should be guaranteed for two years after peace had been declared. 

 They did this especially in view of the necessity of inducing farmers to break 

 up grass land and bring it under the plough. Only the sure prospect of 

 a profit which would continue would reconcile many of them to expending 

 money and labour on this undertaking. 



The Act meets the recommendation of the committee by its provision 

 of a six years' guarantee. 



