MINUTES OF EVIDENCE. 



117 



3 September, 1919.] 



MB. FALCONER L. WALLACE. 



[Continued. 



agriculture, especially from the point of view of the 

 agricultural labourer, that they do have to take the 

 lead from people who know absolutely nothing about 

 agricultural conditions. It has a very unfortunate 

 effect. In many cases it leads to demands which are 

 perfectly impossible, and leads to a certain amount 

 of feeling which ought not to exist; because there 

 ought to be no feeling against Unions ; only when 

 impossible attitudes are taken up, it does lead to 

 a certain amount of feeling, and it only arises from 

 the total inability of a man like a railwayman to 

 understand the conditions under which agriculture 

 is necessarily carried on. 



8735. Have you also thought th's out, that many 

 of these railwayman have been working on the farm 

 themselves and have been the sons of labourers, and 

 left the farm because they could get higher wages 

 elsewhere? They are quite accustomed to farm life 

 themselves, and the men themselves make them secre- 

 taries. That is one reason. Another, I suggest to 

 you, is that in the past, unfortunately, many of the 

 labourer secretaries have been boycotted and sacked 

 by farmers for taking any official position in the 

 Union? Yes, I am afraid that is the case. I have 

 not met or heard of leaders who are not farm 

 workers who have been 'in any way accustomed to 

 farm life. I have met some of these leaders who live 

 in villages. I have one great leader in mind now, 

 who is a retired schoolmaster, who certainly does 

 not know much about agriculture, and I think another 

 is a stone-mason. He does not know much about 

 agriculture except from living in country villages, 

 and in his very early youth when I think he lived 

 with his father who was employed in agriculture. 

 That is the kind of thing. 



8736. Did you find it universally carried out in the 

 Midland Countiea, which you investigated, that per- 

 quisites of board and lodging were not counted as 

 part of the cash .wages? They were hardly ever 

 counted as part of the wages. They were almost 

 invariably given in. 



8737. And you think that still holds good? Yes, 

 it did up. to last year, and I have no doubt it does 

 now. 



8738. Therefore, the men are getting more than 

 their minimum wage? Yes. I have stated that in 

 my notes, I think you will see. 



8739. Mr. / '. M. llrnderson: Referring to farm 

 workers, you say that in the Eastern Counties of 

 the North of Scotland a single man's wages range 

 at the present time up to 190 per annum, including 

 the value of allowances. How much of that do you 

 reckon as allowances? I was taking out from my own 

 farms in Aberdeenshire the wages and the allowances, 

 and I have not any men paid as high as 190. I 

 took that from a statement which I saw published. 

 The top wage in Aberdeenshire is about 150, the 

 allowances coming to about 50 in the case of the 

 married man ; and I put the cost of keeping single 

 men at about the same amount. 



8740. That would leave 140 for cash wages? 

 Which is higher than I have personally known paid. 

 As I say. I took that from a statement which was 

 published. 



8741. I think that must be very much exaggerated, 

 because I know the rate for a first horseman would 

 not bo anything like 140 a year ; it would be more 

 like 80 a year. 



Mr. Diincnn : It is quite correct. It amounts to 

 that, and more in some cases. 



8742. Mr. natclielor: It goes up to 160? It does 

 not apply in Aberdeenshire, but I think it does in 

 oome other parts. I should say in Aberdeenshire it 

 it is 150. 



8743. Mr. J. M. Henderson : You say that in Scot- 

 land, gardens are not encouraged, and the workers do 

 not have time to enjoy them? That is the case. 



8744. You are in favour of some gardens for tho 

 workers, are not you? I am very strongly in favour 

 of it. 



S71.1. To grow both flowers and fruit? Yes. 



S"lf!. Would you wy that the culture of fruit in 

 farms whom they have ample room, and very little 

 labour is requirrd on fruit trees, might not 1x- a groat 

 deal tin.-!' encouraged for household purposes and so 

 forth The only cases which I have come across in 

 tho ("oiinty I know best, which is Al>crdecnshirc, is 

 where they have tried to grow fruit other than bush 



25329 



fruit, it has generally been a failure. Bush fruit 

 might be grown a great deal more than it is. 



8747. And apples, surely ? Apples have very often 

 been a failure. 



8748. Then you speak ver\ gloomily of milk. 

 Have you, in your many wanderings, ever seen the 

 depot at Simley, near Shaftesbury? No, I have not 

 seen that. 



8749. There are, of course, depots where the farm- 

 ers deliver milk and are paid on the spot so much a 

 gallon, and are finished with it? Quite. My point 

 is, why should they have finished with it? Why 

 should they not share in the further profits by being 

 shareholders in the milk factory. 



8750. I was coming to that; but I was rather on 

 this point : that you say in your book, on page 11 : 

 ' The steadings are generally from the point of view 

 of cleanly and economical milk production, of the 

 very dirtiest and most ill-designed types"? That 

 applies to England : it applies less to Scotland. 



8751. My object was to show that there are depots 

 where the milk is properly cleaned and the condi- 

 tions are good? I mean, the farm steadings are so 

 dirty and ill-arranged for milk production. They 

 have mostly been built for feeding, and the cost of 

 adapting them to milk production now is practically 

 prohibitive. 



8752. In some of your schedules I find it rather 

 difficult to follow you : in fact, it would take a good 

 deal of understanding. In series II.,* Cumberland 

 and Westmorland, there is a statement showing the 

 difference in profits on two scales of wages. There 

 is a dairy mixed, the fourth example down : You say 

 " wages 180 " and " cash profit " " lived, no cash." 

 This man with his 300 acres of dairy and mixed, 

 made no profit but managed to live. Is that the 

 meaning of that column? Yes. 



8753. Then in 1918 he made 5 profit per acre? 

 Yes. 



8754. What I cannot understand is this. You say 

 that the profit on the capital is 28 per cent., nd then 

 in the next column you say the profit in 1914 at the 

 present rate of wages would be 100 lower about? 

 Yes. 



8755. You say he lived with no cash ; and you have 

 taken it if he were paying the same rate of wages as 

 now, he would have lost 100? That is what I mean. 



8756. But now, on account of high wages Last 

 vear, not this year. 



" 8757. Last year he made 1,500? Yes. A detailed 

 statement in "regard to that is among the examples 

 which I told the Chairman are in the secretaries' 

 office. 



8758. The very next item is 350 acres mixed. The 

 wages are 213 16s. Od. in 1914? Yes. 



8759. You say their cash profit is 86? Yes. 



8760. But the balance sheet profit is 222?- 

 Because that includes appreciation. It is the differ- 

 ence between the increase in capital value and merely 

 a cash profit. I have taken out the cash profit. 



8761. But the balance sheet shows a profit of 222? 

 Yes which balance sheet is in tho bundle. 



8762. Then the next one is 200 acres. The loss in 

 1914 was 455 14s., and as to the profit in 1918 you 

 mark here a loss, hut the balance sheet shows 

 878 13s. + ? Yes. There again he did not make any 

 actual cash profit, but he got an appreciation in his 

 capital. 



8763. That is not exactly what this means. You say 

 he is at a loss. Docs the balance sheet show 878 13s. f 

 loss? Yes. 



8764. Then that is a balance sheet loss as well? 

 That again you will find in the detailed statements 

 on which this is based. It is the difference between 

 merely taking the cash profit, as I do, and the real 

 profit" which a chartered accountant would take 

 according to a balance sheet. 



8765. An ordinary balance sheet debits the valua- 

 tion at one time and credits it at another? Yes. 



8766. The next one I wish to call attention to is 

 101 acres mixed. The wages paid there are only 17. 

 and in 1914 he lived but had no cash profit? Yes. 



8767. In 1918 he had 40 cash profit? Yes, that IK 



* See Table No. 3 in Appendix No. V. 



t This figure was subsequently altered to 378 13s. 



H 4 



