MINUTES OF KVIDKNCE. 



119 



3 September, l'J19.] 



MR. FALCONER L. WALLACE. 



[Continued. 



8802. Would you be surprised to hear there have 

 been complaints against the working of thu principle 

 elsewhere; that the wages do not follow prices mo 

 closely and so accurately as 1 think you want them 

 to do." Are you aware of that:' Yes, quite. 



''. How do you get over the difficulty in farm- 

 ing:---! suggested one method. You will have to find 

 a basis for it. 1 propose, for instance, in England, 

 the tithe rent charge as the basis. 



8804. What would you do for Scotland; 1 I do not 

 know , 1 cannot answer off-hand. We will have to 

 find something for there the Fiars' Court Prices 

 Kate, or something of that sort. We have the Fiars' 

 Court there. We would have to think out un 

 equivalent. 



8805. You are going to make the part of the wages 

 devoted to the purchase of necessaries fluctuate ? Yes. 



8800. And co-relatively you are going to make that 

 part spent on more or less conventional luxuries, 

 remain constant? Yes. 



8807. It is rather a new principle. You have not 

 the scheme in detail, have you? No, I have not. 



8808. Y'ou have only thrown out tho idea? That 

 is all, which I have long cherished. 



8809. Turning now to your speech at Aberdeen, 

 you say on page 1 that the farm servant has been 

 a&fmrcd of a minimum wage, " and that only until 

 1922.'' That was in Aberdeen. I am not referring^ 

 to your opinion regarding England, but surely the 

 farm worker in Aberdeen, as in other parts of Scot- 

 land, has had no benefit at all from the minimum 

 wages being assured to 1922? Why not. 



8810. Obviously, because they are much above it, 

 and always have been? Quite so; but it is the 

 minimum wage, not the maximum. 



8811. Let me make my point quite clear. If you 

 turn to your excerpt here with regard to tho con- 

 ditions of employment in agriculture in Northampton- 

 shire, you gay something there about tho danger 

 that lies iii fixing wages by Act of Parliament at a 

 comparatively high level; that is to say, in 

 Northamptonshire apparently tho minimum wage 

 fixed by tho Corn Production Act is the wage in 

 operation ? Yes. 



8812. In Scotland it is entirely different? Yes; we 

 have always paid a much higher wage in Scotland, 

 and in tho North of England too. 



8813. I quite agree ; but tho point I wish to make 

 is, that tho Scottish worker is assured of a minimum 

 wage long past 1922. so long as he can fulfil tho con- 

 ditiong of the assurance he has at present? What 

 guarantee has ho that wago.s will not go down except 

 that he will not work for less? 



8814. Precisely. In other words, a Scottish farm 

 servant, I may point out to you, has always had higher 



I. For what reason!' Why have the minimum 

 charges under the Corn Production Act never applied 

 to Scotland!'- Because they have always paid more 

 than that. They have always paid more in the North 

 than in the South, and they have done far more work 

 for their money. 



--l.'i. But why? An hour a day means virtually a 

 day a week : they have worked for longer hours. They 

 :ue more efficient workmen and more skilled workmen. 

 They can afford to pay more to them. 



8816. You have not answered my question. Tho 

 fact that a farmer is able to pay more, as you 

 know perfectly well, does not mean that he is going 

 to pay more unless he is made to do it? I do not 

 think that at all; because 1 have found a great many 

 cases in England as well as in Scotland where the 

 farmer has paid more than the minimum wage and 

 has not been made to do so at all. 



V -I7. Why is it that these minimum wages have not 

 been operative in Scotland, and the wages paid have 

 ala\ lifen higher? I cannot tell you offhand. 



--!-. My point is that this reference on page 1 of 

 your pamphlet thut the worker is only assured of 

 his minimum wage till 1922, might apply to Knglaml 

 but (!oes not appK fo Srot hiinl I do not know 

 why it d<" jiply to Scotland. Supposing the 



fanner refuirq to p.ay more than :i eerlajn wage? 



' lie would not got the men to work for him 

 then. Then on page 2 you say: " The best young men 

 would do anything rather than become or remain 

 agricultural labourers." Have you noticed any 



tendency amongst them to come back with the higher 

 wages that are being paid now? Not much. 



bS20. Also on page 2, in the next paragraph, you 

 say: " Even in 1913 and 1914 good farmers for the 

 most part found that when they had paid their ex- 

 penses and had lived very moderately themselves, 

 ihcre was little or no cash profit left over to put by 

 or to add to their capital." AVe have had here ou 

 pretty good authority, and 1 think you would 

 recognise the good authority, that before the war the 

 average profit of farmers was from 10 to 20 per cent. 

 You would not agree with that estimate? I have 

 given you a very large number of cases showing the 

 actual profits made. Those cases which I have selected 

 are representative farmers, and representative of the 

 elass of farming they go in for; but they are distinctly 

 above the average as experts, and in the amount of 

 money which they put into the land. 1 mean to say, 

 their farming is of a higher order than the average; 

 but 1 have given you a large number of what I 

 claim as facts in this statement showing individually 

 what the actual profits made in 1914 were. 



8821. The quotation I gave you just now was from 

 Sir Daniel Hall's book on Agriculture during the 

 War? The profits made after the war were ex- 

 tremely variable ; in fact bewilderingly variable. 



8822. He was not prophesying ; he was stating the 

 definite fact before the war that the profit was 20 

 per cent.? You will see yourself what I have stated 

 in the number of forms which are on the Chairman's 

 table. In fact I have shown in a lot of them in these 

 statements what the profits were. 



8823. On page 5, you say farmers are under con- 

 siderable temptation to realise now and go out of 

 farming? Yes. 



8824. Have you seen any great tendency among 

 farmers lately to leave the industry? Among the 

 older men, yes. 



8825. That would be natural in any case? A fairly 

 large number of men who would not I think under 

 other conditions, that is to say, pre-war conditions, 

 have retired, and would probably have carried on, 

 have taken the opportunity of retiring while they had 

 their capital intact, because they did not know what 

 the prices in future were going to be. 



8826. And their places have been taken by other 

 people who are coming into the industry? Y'es. I 

 would not say there are any fewer farmers. There 

 is a great demand for farms. 



8827. As a matter of fact, you know a great ninny 

 that arc buying their own farms, do not you? Yes. 



8828. That would indicate that tho temptation to 

 leave is not considerable, would it not? I think 

 it is considerable to many men who have made a bit 

 of money and are getting on in life. 



8829. Put it in the other way then ? Of course with 

 a young man it is another matter. 



8830. We will put it that there is a considerable 

 temptation to another man to come in? I do not 

 think there is, because it is a very dear matter now 

 \o get into a farm. Equipping a farm is an ex- 

 tremely expensive thing. 



8831. But the fact remains that they are doing 

 that? They are. r 



8832. When you talk about the fear of the farmer's 

 position when ho has to face falling prices, are you 

 contemplating falling prices which are simply % going 

 to affect the farmer's commodities which he pro- 

 duces for sale, or a fall in general prices? Of course 

 ho will benefit to some extent by a fall in general 

 prices, but not enough to make up for the loss he 

 will incur through the fall in the price of tho articles 

 he sells himself. Of course, as a member of the 

 community he will benefit to the extent that he can 

 buy his necessities cheaper. 



8833. You have not worked that out? I cannot 

 work it out mathematically, but I have a very clear 

 view. If I may interrupt a moment, I did try very 

 hard to collect some figures to show what the detailed 

 expenditure upon a large number of farms was upon 

 such things as implements, horse-shoeing, and so on, 

 but I could not arrive at any reliable figures. That 

 Ix-ars upon your question. I eanrtot tell you what 

 proportion of gain there would be to loss. 



8834. In your pamphlet, you quote Mr. Runciman's 

 estimate of wheat prices, and you seem to approve of 

 his prophesy that wheat prices would fall to about 



