MINUTES OF EVIDENCE. 



51 



August, 1919.] 



MR. THOMAS 0. GOODWIN. 



[Continued. 



3548. Then in the last paragraph of your precis you 

 leal with the question of co-operation amongst the 

 farmers, and you look forward to a time when the 

 farmers will be able to handle and put on the market 

 all their own produce and so bring the consumer and 

 producer closer together. What would be the effect 

 from the point of view of the general public if co- 

 operation is carried to this point, that the farmers 

 are able to control the marketing of their own pro- 

 duce? I think it will have this effect, that there 

 may be more regularity in the prices. It will do 

 away with some of the slumps that we sometimes get 

 and the waste, and it should help in eliminating so 

 many of the middle profits and have the effect of 

 food" being brought to the consumer at a less price 

 than what it would be under ordinary conditions. 



6549. And you think the community would be quite 

 safe to leave to the farmers the fixing of prices, and 

 that they will run no risk in a market from which 

 competition has been eliminated:' I am afraid that 

 is a very, very long way off. I see no possibility of 

 our getting that control to bring about that state of 

 things. 



0550. You are putting it that they will be able to 

 market all their own producer' That means that 

 there will be a great saving at certain times of the 

 year. As you know under our system of agriculture 

 we do get certain periods of the year when there is 

 a big lot of produce put on the market, and often 

 great waste, and you may get prices down tem- 

 porarily; but I think it would regulate prices to 

 some extent the fact that it will be dealt with in a 

 better way. 



6551. And you think the community would be quite, 

 safe to trust to the farmers fixing a price when thev 

 control the market? I do not think they have suf- 

 fered from the present position. 



<;-i-~>2. \\ould the farmers be prepared to allow 

 either the consumers or their workmen any share in 

 the control of such a scheme of marketing their pro- 

 duce? I do not anticipate that we shall ever <vt 

 lontrol to that extent. 



(. !o that you are now not looking forward to 

 what you say in your /n-i'i-ixr I am looking font an! 

 tx> it. Imt I thini the time is a, long way off before 

 we shall l> able to get that control. 



I. So that wo cannot look to much improve- 

 ment in agriculture from that. 9 Certainly it will 

 !>ring about a great improvement in the way I stip- 

 ulation of prices instead <>t' the waste 

 that you get at tin' present time. 



iV5->5. Mr. l>*ill<i<: I do not want to auk you VITV 

 many questions, because you have answered a great 

 deal ami very well, too. I just want to come to this 

 efficiency of labour question. I am not surf whether 

 yon grasped the point made by Mr. Langford or 

 whether I grasped it myself, but he mentioned that 

 in days gone by. with a plentiful supply of labour, 

 the farmer was not very particular about the effi- 

 ciency of his labour, but now. with high wages and a 

 ity of labour, he has ^ot to be a great deal morn 

 careful, and therefore lie *.<-. defects, whi'-h may 

 have existed in days gone by. but which he did not 

 trouble ci'iout. Do not you think there is a lot in 

 that? There is no doubt a lot in it. 



*>-).Vj. Therefore the inefficiency of labour is more 

 apparent than actually real? I think it will 

 I think it is passing. 



7 F suppose you know, like the rest of us, that 



in other industries as well as agriculture, we r< 



I with this fact, that working people are i;ot 



going to work the long hours they worked in days 



j;ono by?- Quite so. 



'i55**. And that employers in agr culture must face 

 that position.- Ye-. 



' \\ith regard to tl>'-. di -content in Cheshire 

 ! not think it i.s due to one side alone? Talk- 

 ing l>out labour nnn-st and discontent, you do not 

 think that it is dm- to the labourer* alone; for 

 HI-KIM.,., they hnvo not all the vices and the em- 



i the virtues? No, certainly not. 

 You ;m> ;,u;ire that an agreement was arrived 

 entry on a Saturday and was broken by a large 

 number of the employers on the Monday:' l> 

 rofer to the agreement that, 1 have mentioned? 



6561. I think so; between the Cheshire Farmers' 

 Union and the Workers' Union? Not that I am 

 aware of. 1 was not aware that it had been broken 

 at all. I thought that all the farmers were carrying 

 it out loyally. 



6562. That is not the fact that is placed in front of 

 me or in front of Sir Henry Rew as representing the 

 Board of Agriculture? I am very much surprised to 

 hear that, because I thought it was working most 

 satisfactorily at the present time. 



6563. Probably, yes. Mr. Sadler and Mr. Jones 

 and a number of the best farmers brought the others 

 into line, but that led to a lot of discontent. What 

 I want to suggest to you is this, that unless there i.s 



good faith on both sides ? Quite so. We should. 



certainly not uphold that sort of thing, and I was 

 not aware that that had taken place. As far as we 

 have any knowledge, it is loyally carried out. 



6564. It is now? Yes; in fact, we have recom- 

 mended it to be loyally carried out all the time since 

 the agreement was made. 



6565. I am sure of that. Now just one other 

 point. You know, that this year the farmers have 

 been laying a lot of land down to grass ? Yes, there 

 is quite a lot of land that has been laid down, but 

 I may say that there is ever so much accounted tor 

 by the fact that a lot of land that should have gone 

 down to the ordinary course to seeds has been kept 

 up, and we have suffered as result in our clo-.vr. 

 hay, and fodder. The same rotation has not I/i.-eii 

 followed up to the same extent, and now farmers 

 have returned more to their normal system of farm- 

 ing on whatever course system it is. 



6566. \"ou think that would account for tin 

 majority of it this year? I think it would account 

 for a very large percentage. Of course, you will 

 always get cases where men will immediately lay 

 down some of their land to grass; in other cases you 

 have farms that are really over-ploughed. 



6567. I was aware of how it was: that in spite ot 

 tlie fact on the one hand the farmers have a definite 

 guarantee for this year's and nexIT year's crop, and 

 also that there is a world's shortage of food production. 

 why it was they were letting this land go down to 

 grass? You mean land that has been laid per- 

 manently down to grass? 



6568. Yes? I think that would apply in some of 

 the districts where they have been chiefly grass and 

 where they are isolated, and as a result they are more 

 heavily hit, because they have had a great assistance 

 during the period of the war from the Executive 

 Committees in carrying out their ploughing pro- 

 gramme. 



6-560. A final word about the guarantee. Do you 

 think it would be right for the manufacturers who 

 manufacture ploughs and drills and harrows and all 

 your machinery that they should have a guaranteed 

 price and be subsidised by the State? For their 

 machinery p 



6570. Yes? Is there any need for that? 



(!571. That is a matter of opinion, of course. I 

 am not here to answer questions. I am here to ask 

 them. Some of these manufacturers, and especially 

 manufacturers in this country who are now manu- 

 facturing tractors are subject, as you know, to very 

 severe foreign competition ? Yes. 



<>o72. Do not you think they would be entitled to 

 get some protection from the State? Really, I do 

 not quite know how I should answer that question, 

 if I had a little more time to think about it. 



6573. I only suggest to you that for all the things 

 you buy as an employer, as a farmer, you do not 

 want to buy them in a protected market; you want 

 to puy them in an open free market as cheaply as you 

 possibly can. Is not that so? We naturally all want 

 to liny in the cheapest market we can. 



6574. But for the products that you sell you want 

 to get the best price and you want to get the market 

 protected in your interest? We want a price to live 

 at, whatever way it comes. 



Mr. J)allns : Nobody on this Commission would ever 

 object to that. 



(!.)/.>. Mr. I'tnilli'i/: Do you come here as a repre- 

 sentative of any public bodies in Cheshire, or only 



D 3 



