MINUTES OF EVIDENCE. 



26 August, 1919.] 



MR. R. C. BODRNE. 



[Continued. 



6616. You have given us figures of the percentage 

 increase in the cost of wheat since 1915? Yes. 

 Those are taken from the annual volume of the Royal 

 Agricultural Society. 



5617. In paragraph 7 you again refer to the further 

 shortening of hours being detrimental to the cost of 

 production. You are assuming that no improvement 

 is to be looked for by way of better organisation, and 



so on? It is very difficult to see where one is going 

 to organise things very much better than they are at 

 present. We may get some new discovery such as a 

 practical method of using electrical power in agricul- 

 ture or something of that sort which will constitute a 

 great improvement, but it is difficult with the present 

 machinery that we have to see where any improvement 

 can take place. 



5618. Mr. J. 11. Henderson : I am at a loss to find 

 out exactly what is your experience. When were you 

 on active service? I joined up at the beginning of the 

 war in 1914 and served in Gallipoli and France and 

 was demobilised in 1917 since when I have been manag- 

 ing my father's farm. 



5619. Your experience of farming, therefore, has 

 been one year and six months? Yes. 



5620. Do you think that experience enables you to 

 give evidence of the same value as that which we have 

 had from witnesses who have spent all their lives in 

 agriculturi !- 



' ni, a n : That is for us to judge as a Commission. 



5621. Mr. J. M. Henderson: What did you do 

 before you went on active service? I had been at the 

 Bar for a year, and I had just before that come down 

 from Oxford. 



5622. Yon say there are certain farm accounts which 

 you have, and you told the Chairman that you could 

 not give the Commission these accounts without your 

 father's consent? Quit so. 



5623. Do you think your father would be likely to 

 consent, if he thought that those accounts would be of 

 any value to 'the Commission, to let us have these 



accounts of the actual working of the farm? I am 



afraid that is a point I could not answer off-hand ; I 

 did not discuss the matter with him when I got the 

 Commission's letter asking mo to give evidence, and I 

 have had no opportunity of approaching him on the 

 subject sinro. 



5624. Will you be so kind as to ask him? Cer- 

 tainly. 



5625. Accounts such as those will be of more value 

 to us than demonstration of the value of horses or 

 anything else. We n'ant if we can to get returns from 

 various farms, and if your father will be good enough 

 to sanction the production of his farm accounts to 



the Commission we shall all be very pleased indeed. 



I will certainly convoy your w'sh to him. 



5626. Mr. Crrcn : Your evidence-in-chief deals verv 

 largely with the efficiency of labour?- ft 



5627. Are you aware " that tho land and stock 

 management capacity of the labourer has consider- 

 ably increased since 1871? Yes, quite. 



5628. Do you not consider that altogether apart 

 from tho increase in the cost of living the labourer 

 should be paid more in consequence of his greater 

 capacity? Do you mean tho labourer as a whole 

 should be paid more because of that, or that the indi- 

 vidual man who looks after the -tt.ck should be paid 

 more because of his increased skill? 



5629. I put it to you that tho fact that he is able 

 to manage more stock now than ho was able to do 

 before is one reason why he should ruche higher 

 wan.-- You are referring to the individual man? 



">i;.'i. Yes? I think he is paid more, because he is 

 a skilled man. 



His skill has increased since 1871 in tho ratio 

 of ,) to 6, and. therefore, apart from increased cost 

 of Bring he i, entitled to be paid more for his in- 

 CTMied skill, is he not?- I am afraid I do not under- 

 stand your questions. 



The labourer who manaped three head of 

 stork in 1H71 is now able to look after six head, and 

 do you not think, in consequence of the inrrea-ed 

 efficiency in tiie labour Mian.-rrment of s-lock he. 

 ihonld lie paid more, ...part altogether from the 

 higher cost of tiring? I do not think so. Nowadays 

 one man looks after six cattle and perhaps a great 



HIM 



many more, and is probably worth higher wages 

 because he is a more skilled man, but I do not think 

 that affects the question of the general labourer. 



5633. I asked you whether you were aware of the 

 increase in the skill of laud and stock management 

 on the part of the labourer as between 1871 and the 

 present time, aud you said you were, but apparently 

 you are not aware of it. Your farm is in Hereford- 

 shire? Yes. 



5634. You are going to have electric power there ? 

 We do not know; we hope so. 



5635. With regard to getting extra efficiency in 

 the organisation of labour, are you not of opinion 

 that the use of electric power would make an enor- 

 mous difference in lighting barns and cowsheds and 

 the utilisation of machinery for cleaning out sheds 

 and pumping liquid manure and that kind of thing? 

 I think it very probably might, but we have not 

 had it so far, and one has not had a chance of 

 figuring it out to see what it is capable of effecting. 

 We do not know how much the cost of the electric 

 unit will be, and therefore it is very difficult to 

 answer your question. 



5636. You could utilise labour a great deal more 

 on wet days if you had electric power than you are 

 able to do at present, could you not? We have to 

 utilise it now. 



5637. Yes, but it would give you a greater oppor- 

 tunity of utilising your labour efficiently on wet 

 days? We have to employ our labour whether it is 

 wet or fine. 



5638. Yes, but I am asking you whether you could 

 not utilise your labour more efficiently if you had 

 electric power than you are able to do at the present 

 moment? Yes, you might. 



5639. With regard to your paragraph 7, upon 

 which Mr. Thomas Henderson questioned you, I do not 

 quite understand that paragraph. Do you mean to 

 say there has always been a relationship between 

 wages and prices? No, I do not think that there has 

 been in all things. 



5640. You think that wages have always been a 

 matter of custom? In the past I should think that 

 they have been a good deal a matter of custom. 



5641. Mr. Duncan : I am not quite clear as to 

 the basis of your calculations as to the cost of labour 

 in these figures you have given. In paragraph 7, 

 for instance, you contrast the wages of 11 men at 

 18s. per week with those of 12 men at 36s. 6d. per 

 week ? Yes. 



5642. Is that because you find that 12 men are now 

 required to do the work of 11 men previously? Yes. 



5643. For exactly the same amount of cultivation? 

 Exactly the same. 



5644. There has been no greater cultivation?' 

 There has been an increase since 1914, but the staff 

 was the same then as in 1916; it has been the last 

 shortening of hours which has necessitated the em- 

 ployment of an extra man. 



5645. Have you found in your experience that yotv 

 require an extra man because of the shortening of 

 hours? That is so. 



564(5. Do you think that your experience has. 

 extended over a sufficiently lonji period to enable you 

 to say it is tho reduction in the number of working 

 hours which has necessitated the employment of an 

 extra man:' One can only speak from personal 

 experience, and I agree that the shortening of hours 

 has only just come into operation, and that we have 

 not had a very long experience of the result of the 

 working. 



5647. Do you think it wise to base a conclusion 

 upon such short experience? If an experiment is 

 tried and it leads to a certain result it, at any rate, 

 gives one reason for thinking that the result is duo 

 to a 'certain cause. Although it may not ho 

 absolutely correct you have nothing else to go by. 



56IS. IK the quality of your labour the same to-day 

 HS it was in pre-war times or has it been allcctrd b\ 

 ill' war!" The quality of the labour has improved 

 since the war has been over; otherwise it remained 

 constant during the war. 



B + 



