MINUTES OF EVIDENCE. 



125 



3 September, 1919.] 



MR. FALCONER L. WALLACE. 



[Continued. 



certainly was a very high proportion in Cumberland, 

 because the married men mostly had to go away. 



8974. May 1 put it to you in this way. You went to 

 Northumberland comparatively soon after being in 

 Oxfordshire ? Yes. 



8975. Was it not your general impression that there 

 was a far higher proportion of men, say, between 20 

 and 45, in Northumberland than in Oxfordshire:' I do 

 not think I noticed anything of the sort; except in 

 Northumberland, where the system is for whole 

 families to work on the farm, and there are more 

 young people there, because all the girls work on the 

 farm until they get married. I think there may have 

 been more boys there. I do not remember any par- 

 ticular impression, and I have not any figures before 

 me at the moment. 



8976. I put it to you definitely that you did think, 

 when you were in Oxfordshire, that there was a very- 

 high proportion of old men in the County? Of course 

 during the war there were. I see your point. More 

 of the younger men did go from the Midland County 

 than from the North, undoubtedly. I think I matin 

 that comment in one of my reports. 



S977. And, therefore, the comparative efficiency 

 would be affected to that extent? It would be. J 

 certainly think there were more young men did go 

 from the farms in the Midlands than went from some 

 of these northern counties. 



8978. Will you consider the question of education 

 for a moment. I, like yourself, think it is essential 

 that there should be some increase in skill, and cer- 

 tainly a great increase of interest among farm 

 workers in their work. I want to put to you that 

 there is no advantage to the farm worker to develop 

 skill in certain operations for which there will be no 

 demand, as, for instance, thatching if you keep on 

 increasing '.he number of Dutch barns ; or shearing, 

 if you use more shearing machines ; or hedging, if vou 

 are going to adopt systems of patent fencing. Is that 

 not the case? No doubt, to a certain extent, that will 

 apply ; but, then, all operations in farming are skilled. 



8979. I admit that ; but is it not your experience, 

 and was it not borne out by some of your meetings 

 with labourers in Northamptonshire, that there had 

 been a failure to develop skill more or less because 

 there had been a failure ol the demand for skill by the 

 farmers? No, I do not think that; certainly not. 

 There has been a great demand for skillid labour which 

 was unobtainable. 



). During the war, yes? Before the war, I know 

 all round the country where I farmed it was a most 

 difficult thing to get thatchers. There were one or 

 two thatchers in a large area, and everybody wanted 

 them at once. It was the same way with men who 

 rould cut and lay a hedge, and with all the more 

 skilled operations. 



8981. What happens in other businesses? A boy 

 enters, say, at 14 or 15 years of age, and there are 

 many businesses and industries in which there is no 

 system of apprenticeship. Do not the employers, 

 through their other workmen, teach their young work- 

 men the business? Yes, certainly. 



8982. Po far as technical skill is concerned, would 

 not you apply the same principle to farming? Kxcept 

 that the boys complain that the old men do not take 

 the trouble or give the time to teach them. You can 

 ((iiito understand a man cutting a fence, which is 

 mostly paid by piece-work, would not bother to teach 

 a boy. He wants to get on with his work. 



:!. I remember the case some years aeo of a very 

 skilled drainer who refused to have unskilled drainers 

 working with him because they were unskil'ed, and 

 he was not i.ble to earn as much with them as with 

 Ins fairly skilled assistant. The farmer in thit case 

 paid the drainer who was working on his farm 1 for 

 if two youths he sought to assist him one winter. 

 It was quite good business. It was a small sum, but it 

 induced the drainer to teach the assistants. Do not 

 you think the farmers would be well advised to adopt 

 pome such lines as those? Yes, I think they might 

 do so, perhaps. 



8984. Do not you think, as a matter of fact, that 

 that U the only method by which you can teach the 

 great. ]>ro[X>rtion of the youths engaged in agriculture 

 t ill of their work, by providing sumo inducement 

 f..r 'ho men who have the skill to teach the others? 

 Yes, I think that is a very good point. 



8985. Supposing you had a County Council farm 

 with quite short courses, you could not teach more 

 than, say, 100 a year? Teach them what? 



8986. Teach them any of the skilled operations? 

 My point was not only what we technically call 

 skilled operations. I say all farming is skilled opera- 

 tions. We know that to our tost when we employed 

 the unskilled people in war time. Why not teach 

 them the management of horses, cattle and sheep? 

 I am not talking only of thatching, ditching and 

 draining ; but all farming operations. Why not 

 teach them the love of animals, and how to under- 

 stand their management as well? 



8987. I am glad you said that; because if you had a 

 County Council farm of, say, 200 acres, or something 

 like that, you might not be able to take the boys 

 through a course that would give them what you 

 want to give them in a greater number than, say, a 

 dozen or 20 in each year; and the ultimate value of 

 that depends on the extent to which they give the 

 teaching they have gained to their fellow workers 

 with whom they work? Yes, quite. 



8988. So you do come back to the same principle, 

 that the development of skill in farming depends on 

 the workers' teaching each other, and the farmer 

 inducing them to do so? Yes; you have made a 

 good point. 



8989. You are a business man, and I believe a very 

 able business man. What would you rather depend 

 on as a business man in the farming industry your 

 own judgment of the capacities of your land and the 

 use to which your capital should be put, and of the 

 trend of the markete; or some guarantee under which 

 you might possibly be compelled to .adopt certain 

 forms of cultivation and certain forms of production 

 that would be against your better judgment? And 

 would certain costs be compulsorily imposed upon me 

 or not? Would I be free to pay what I liked to my 

 men, and pay what I liked for all the things I re- 

 quired to carry on my business; or am I only going 

 to be free on one side and be tied on the other? 



8990. As far as wages are concerned, that is a 

 question I personally could not answer; because if 

 yon got rid of the Corn Production Act you would 

 still have other forms of what you might call com- 

 pulsion, or not compulsion, but which would certainly 

 affect your standard rate of wages. What is your 

 general answer to that question? My general answer 

 is, and I cannot go further than this, that if costs 

 are imposed upon me-, and I am not left free to use my 

 own judgment and to farm as cheaply as I possibly 

 can, and to pay what I like and buy what I like at 

 whatever price T like if that is going to be imposed 

 upon me, I want to be protected on the other side 

 clearly. 



8991. When you use the phrase "Costs are im- 

 posed " upon you, you mean, I presume, costs imposed 

 upon you by Legislative action? Yes, I do. 



8992. So that if you were free of costs imposed 

 upon you by Legislative action, you would be satis- 

 fied to use your own judgment as to how you would 

 use your land and capital? I do not think I would be 

 contented, if you moan this: to farm now without 

 any sort of guarantee now that prices have been 

 raised to the present level; because they have, to a 

 certain extent, been raised to that level artificially. 

 T do not believe they will ever come down again ; and 

 I do not want to see them come down either. 



8993. You are farming in Scotland at the present 

 moment? Yes; and we are paying more than the 

 minimum wage ; and in some parts of England they 

 have paid more than the minimum wage all along. 



8994. That is not then artificial ? No, it is not. 

 8994A. So that, as a farmer in Scotland, where 



wages are not artificial, you are quite prepared to go 

 on and use your own judgment in the matter of 

 organising your farming district? Do you mean by 

 using my own judgment, whether I am content to 

 farm without any sort of guarantee or protection ? 



8995. Yes? I am not; because I think all coste 

 are so high now, and I think the future in regard to 

 prices of what I am going to produce is so absolutely 

 guess work and indefinite, that I am not prepared 

 as a general farmer to go on farming. Personally, 

 I am in a special kind of business the pedigree 



