122 A NEW AGRICULTURAL POLICY 



It must have real powers, and become in fact 

 the Ministry of Agriculture in place of that 

 present bureaucratic body, and it should consist 

 of representatives in equal numbers of the three 

 classes of agriculturists — the farmer or bailiff, 

 managing for the community, making one class, 

 the farm worker another, and the finest of our 

 agricultural chemists, engineers, and account- 

 ants forming the remaining class. 



Now it is necessary to outline the policy to be 

 pursued in acquiring land, the size of the holdings, 

 and the method to be adopted to see that the 

 worker obtains the full fruits of his labour. In 

 the acquisition of land at prices which have not 

 been inflated since the War, the Land Settle- 

 ment Facilities Act does not help us much. 

 For every acre of land we purchased, to let to 

 ex-soldiers or others, we have had to purchase 

 at the market value, increased by war prices. 

 The Agriculture Act does not help us in the 

 least, not even in the State having the power 

 to take over land where the owner has glaringly 

 neglected his stewardship. And if the com- 

 munity has to drain land, to improve it by 

 better cultivation, to put up new buildings, etc., 

 it is obvious that the community will not tolerate 

 doing this in order to hand it back, in an im- 

 proved condition, to owners who have either 

 wilfully neglected the land or have been unable, 

 through the stress of circumstances, to do their 

 duty by it. 



