106 



COMMISSION ON AGRlCULTI'HK. 



S Stpltmber, 1919.] 



8m RICHARD WINFREY, M.P. 



[Continual. 



one for 91 years, and we are going to proceed 



to do that again. All the men will know <li 

 that they have another 21 years and the inn- nppn,x- 

 imato very closely to the rents paid by lli<< ; 

 farmers. 



S436. Have you applications front ordinary working 

 men of the same claad as your present holders for 

 .-mull holdings? Yog. It is a most difficult problem. 

 We hav<> a waiting list of, I think you might say, 

 hundreds. 



8437. I meant now not exactly the soldiers? No; 

 but I was going to toll you that we had 100 

 to let on the Wingland Estate, and we let it be 

 known we would let it, and we have had altogether 

 between S) and 90 applications. Then I selected 

 them and said wo must give the ex-soldiers first 

 chance, and there were 39 who were ex-soldiers and 

 50 who were not ex-soldiers, many of them already 

 tcii.inta. who want a little more land. 



8428. These men were a class of men who knew 

 the i ..millions and who knew the success of your 

 present tenants? Quite. 



8429. The psychological effect of tho fixing of price* 

 iiniler the Corn Production Act has been mentioned 

 to us, I think by Sir Thomas Middleton, whom you 

 know 'very well; do you think that the fact, that the 

 vast majority of the farmers of this country are always 

 farming and that they do not know the day that 

 thev may get notice to quit for some reason or an- 

 other, has had what you may call a psychological 

 effect on the farmers? Insecurity of tenure? 



8430. Yes, the insecurity of tenure as compared 

 with your tenants here? I do not think the 

 insecurity of tenure has been a very great 

 factor. There has not been a great deal of 

 insecurity of tenure on tho large estate*; it has only 

 been amongst the smaller landowners there has 

 been insecurity until recently of course. During the 

 war a large number of landowners were putting their 

 land into the market, as you know, but until the 

 period of war there was not very much insecurity of 

 tenure on tho large estates. So long as a man farmed 

 fairly well and paid his rent, he was secure. 



-I. : U. You have already said that a good deal of 

 the land in the country is on sale at the present time 

 and that the prices have increased from 30 per cent, 

 up to 100 per cent., and you seemed to indicate 

 that that was an infallible index of agricultural 

 prosperity. I should like you to explain more fully 

 what you mean by that? I mean this, that when 

 land is put into the market now, not only the sitting 

 tenant, but even an outsider is prepared to give more 

 fur it than he would have done, say, in 1914, and I 

 cannot imagine any sane person doing it unless ho 

 was fairly sure of making an increased profit out 

 of it. 



8432. You are not acquainted with Wales, I pre- 

 sume? I have been down to Pembrey. whore we 

 purchased an ctate for ex-soldiers, and also up 

 into Cheshire, near to the River Dee, but I do not 

 know much about Wales. 



8433. You are aware that the farmers, as a 

 have a great attachment to their holdings to their 

 home? Quite. 



8434. And you would be prepared, I suppose to admit 

 that the fart that the sitting tenant pays a certain 

 mini in open competition for the farm is no real proof 

 that that farmer calculates in the way you suggest? 



I think it is a fairly good proof, because I do not 

 think the ,,ther competitors would come in if they 

 did not know it was a good thing. I should not 

 want to buv a farm at the increased value unless I 

 was persuaded that it was going to pay. 



8496. Do you know what happened after a similar 

 ro passing through now. The 



greatest cii.j was nftor the Napoleonic Wars. You 

 know what happened nftor the Napoleonic Wars? 



Thr rinirmnn: I do not think that is a question 

 that come* within the ambit of our examination 

 going back to the Napoleonic period. 



/: I think it is most ewential. 



Thr Chairman : I am afraid I must rule you out 

 of order n that snl.j. 



8496. Mr. Edward*: You admit that we now live 

 in an utterly abnormal period? I do. 



8437. And that the prosperity of agriculture at the 

 t moment is an absolutely fictitious prosperity ': 



It is not n. titious, because it is there; it is abnor 

 mal. 



8438. It U a prosperity of prices and not of produce. 

 Tin- whole prosperity you' will admit is not that we 



{>roduce -more from our farms but tho prices are 

 ligher? It is not a fictitious prosperity; it is a 

 leal prosperity for the time being, but it is abnormal. 



8439. We all expect that we shall before long rein ! i 

 something like a normal state of affairs. What will 

 !* the state of these .men who are paying from 30 to 

 100 per cent, more for their land? I am speaking 

 of the sitting tenants; what is likely to be their 

 jMis'tion in tho future? I'nless they have made a very 

 good profit during the intervening years, they will 

 ( losers, as they were in the 'seventies. \Ve are now 

 repeating what happened between 1868 and 1874, and 

 then the price of land dropped and people suffered. 



8440. As to the position at the present moment, that 

 land is fetching from 30 to 100 per cent, more than 

 it did in pre-war times, and at the same time wo as 

 a nat'on expect things to arrive at the normal state 

 of affairs? Yes; it depends upon when that time 

 arrives as to how much these people will lose. 



8441. Consequently, inevitably, if that is your 

 opinion, the position o! these men will not be an 

 agreeable one in five or ton years lieiiee!- lint that 

 is no reason why the consuming publ.c should pay 

 more in order to bolster up these people in making 

 bad bargains. 



8442. I am looking at the matter from the national 

 point of view of agriculture in the near future when 

 we hope to see a state of normal times. 



The Chairman: I think the witness has answered 

 your question. 



8443. Mr. Edwards: Now you say that rent is on 

 the rise in all districts known to you. There is one 

 other point I should like to ask you in regard to the 

 sales of land which you mentioned just now. You 

 mentioned a well-known authority on agriculture, 

 Mr. Tumor by name, who has doubled his income by 

 selling his land?- Selling his estate, or one of his 

 estates, perhaps. 



8444. And the landowners are doing it as a class 

 all over the country? Yes. 



8445. What would be the result if the tenant 

 farmers had followed the same method of cashing the 

 values in the same way as tho landowners I mean 

 of the stock? Going out of farming? 



8446. Yes? Some of them are. 



8447. What if they did all over the country in the 

 same proportion us landowners? There are a great 

 many farmers in tho Eastern Counties who have taken 

 the opportunity of going out now having made 

 their money. I live in tho town of Peterborough, 

 and during this last four years we have had about 20 

 farmers come and buy houses in Peterborough, and 

 retire. 



8448. Is that likely to have n good or a bad effect 

 on farming in the future 1 :' I suppose you will admit 

 lhat this Commission is really to prepare the ground 

 for the future policy of agriculture? Quite. 



8449. Assuming that there are a large proportion 



of farmers who nre cashing thoir stock P I will 



not say a large proportion; a considerable nuni'm r 

 They are letting in other men who have taken lli n 

 farms, and up to the present those men .-re doing 

 very well. 



8460. But those men are going in now at the 



-,t pi-ire--. Kx) per cent, over tho ordinary p' 

 Y*. 



8451. What will be the result in the case of tin-- 

 moil when tlii-y reach the normal times which we 

 all expect!- I do not know. Th( v will have to cut 

 their mat according to thoir cloth like the r. 



I do not tea how wo can legislate for them. 

 What they are doing, they are doing with their eyes 

 open. A 'man who goes in for farming today ai.d 

 agrees to pay for land and agrees to buv implements 

 and everything nt an imrr i*. like a man 



going into any other business; he taVos the risks. 



J. I quite agree: but wo must take things as they 



I want to know the effect of all this on 



the development of agriculture in the future? Of 



