THE AGRICULTURE ACT 91 



The supporters of the Agriculture Bill, 

 anxious to persuade the truculent Lords that 

 this miserable measure was not really as black 

 as it had been painted, prefaced the copy sub- 

 mitted to the Upper House with a memorandum 

 containing the following paragraph : 



"The provisions of S. 9 of the Act of 19 17, 

 which deal with the enforcement of proper 

 cultivation, are re-enacted with substantial 

 modifications and amendments by Clause 4. 

 The principal amendments are as follows : 



" (a) It is proposed that orders for a change 

 of cultivation shall only be made when 

 the production of food can, in the 

 national interest, be thereby main- 

 tained or increased without injuriously 

 affecting the persons interested in the 

 land, and a right of appeal to an 

 arbitrator is provided to determine 

 whether the order is properly made. 

 Such an order may not interfere with 

 the discretion of the occupier as to the 

 crops to be grown" 



What fertile fields for litigation are prepared 

 by those passages that I have taken the liberty 

 of italicising ! For the next generation the 

 lawyers will arise and call this Act blessed, for 

 the Lords were not appeased. Even the weak 

 proposals of the Government were still further 

 robbed of strength. 



