THE POLICY OF GUARANTEED PRICES 65 



graphically said in answer to a question I put 

 to him, "They have not been in the picture at 

 all." 1 



Indeed, owing to the rapidly diminishing 

 wheat average since 191 8, I should say that 

 the guaranteed prices have had a contrary 

 effect, causing farmers to fear a low price. 

 And if any one thinks that the guaranteed price 

 of 68s. per qr. (rising and falling according 

 to costs), as incorporated in the Agriculture 

 Act, 1920, is going to turn a single furrow 

 lying dormant, hidden from the fructifying 

 touch of the sun, the frost, the rain, and the 

 wind, to form seed pasturage for corn, he thinks 

 with his head in the clouds, where it should be, 

 but his feet do not, as they should, make con- 

 tact with Mother Earth. The price embodied 

 in the Act does not profess to leave a profit, 

 but only to ensure the farmer against serious 

 loss. Is any one therefore going to believe 



1 Mr. Green (Q. 20) : " Do you think that the guaranteed 

 prices as a policy have really stimulated corn production in 

 this country?" Ans. : "Certainly not. . . ." Q. 221: 

 " Therefore they have been quite ineffective ? " Ans. : " They 

 have not been in the picture at all." 



Mr. J. M. Henderson (Q. 128): "The result of the Corn 

 Production Act has been to increase the cereal area of how 

 much?" Ans. : " I do not think the Corn Production Act has 

 had any effect in that direction." And, again, Ans. to Q. 223 : 

 "The area under the plough has been increased by nearly 

 2,000,000 acres ; but I would not put that down to the Corn 

 Production Act, but to the much more drastic action of the 

 War Executive Committee." {Minutes of Evidence, Royal Com- 

 mission on Agriculture, 1919-) 



