MINUTES OF EVIDENCE. 



127 



3 September, 1919.] 



MR. FALCONER L. WALLACE. 



[Continued. 



meet your costs just the same. You have to grow 

 Trheat as a rotation crop in England in any case. 



9018. But if you cultivate it with a view to stock 

 raising, you still have corn in your rotation? Yes, 

 quite so. 



9019. Supposing your proposed sliding scale could 

 be developed and made operative, would you legislate 

 for a certain fixed time, say 12 months! ahead. I 

 mean, you could not be having changes constantly? 

 Xo, you could not. You see the Fiars' Court is a 

 periodic thing, and the tithe rent charge is a periodic 

 thing. I have not worked it out in detail. It will 

 take some very clever heads to work it out in detail. 



9030. I do not mean the details, but to work it 

 ou t? Yes, it will have to be periodic adjustment, 

 because the prices fluctuate. 



9021. With regard to the price per acre of certain 

 crops, do you think any reliable basis can be arrived 

 at, or that we shall have to take a large number of 

 cases of actual costs, and then strike an average which 

 would be as nearly fair as possible ? That is the 

 only possible course in my opinion. You cannot get 

 anything exact. 



9022. It really will be only an estimate as nearly 

 correct as possible? Only an estimate, because you 

 See until you have actually threshed your corn out. 

 as you know yourself, you never know how much you 

 have got off the land. Then you have to apportion 

 tho various expenses to ea"h crop, and there is a 

 great deal of estimating in it. You can only get ft 

 approximately. You will find in different districts 

 you will get the most bewildering variations which 

 are plausib'e if not justifiable, and in some cases 

 quite justifiable. I think the only possible thing 

 is to get a large number of estimates and very care- 

 fully look into them and examine the basis upon which 

 they are sent in. They used to ask me to arrept 

 all sorts of things without any basis whatever, and 

 I simply refused to do so. They had to show me 

 how they got at the figures. Then you will have to 

 take a broad view and average the lot. and allow 

 plenty of margin, on my theory of what the man loses 

 on tho round-abouts he looks to gain on the swings. 



9023. Would you take earh individual crop as a 

 bnsi.4. or would you take the rotation? Yes; you 

 rannot tako each individual Top as a basis unless 

 you lump them all together afterwards. That is tho 

 great danger of it. That is what I want so much 

 to impress on the Commission, if I may ; the danger 

 of taking the cost of production of each crop in 

 rotation, and allowing for a little bit of profit on that 

 crop, and so going through the whole rotation. You 

 will make a perfect mess of farming if you do that. 

 You must treat farming as a whole, and you will have 

 to take the whole cost of farming as a whole. Either 

 ;\kf the crops singly and lump them together after- 

 wards, or take the whole rotation. 



9024. I am very glad to have your definite opinion. 

 That is my view too. In your pamphlet, you say 

 yon think the profits have been simply more or less 

 a personal matter, and it is not a question of cheaply 

 rented farms or good farms, but just well-managed 

 farms? I think so. to a great extent ; and luck too. 



9025. TX> not you think that the best land is the 

 cheapest, oven with a rent at 10s. an acre more or 

 more than that, with two equally good farmers? 

 Yos, I think it is, but not necessarily the land that 

 is naturallv brst. Take some of that land in Northum- 

 berland, bolow Beal. in some of that clay district 

 which was once derelict land. That has been turned 

 into most beautiful feeding land by closer and basic 

 -lag and more modern treatment. I would not like to 

 say. and I am not stating, that that sort of land might 

 not be as profitable as some of the very fine red land. 



9026. It would on that particular land, but it 

 is not the land I have in view. Take two farms, both 

 fairly oni1y worked, but one naturally good produc- 

 tive land and the other of poorer quality ? There is 

 mi question about it, of course, that the better land 

 rroiild br tho more profitable. 



9027. That rathor contradicts the impression that 

 tliK Convoys?- Yos. Of course a groat deal has to do 

 nith tho r<-nt. What I had in my mind was. _ where 

 a man might rent some poor land of this description, 

 cold olav 1-ind. and might get it at a very cheap rate 



and make money out of it, and he might make as 

 much out of it ae out of naturally good land. 



9028. A good arable land might be very sandy 

 land and would not produce so much? Yes; and it 

 costs a lot of money to cultivate, of course. 



9029. Do you consider that a lot of the so-called pro- 

 fits of the farmers during the war are merely what 

 one might call paper profits? Certainly they are. 



9030. Or deferred payments; and that a great lot 

 of the money will have to be put back into the land? 

 I call it inflation of capital value; it is inflated 

 capital. I mean it is here to-day and may be gone 

 to-morrow. A man's capital ie increased as the value 

 of his stock has increased ; but if the value of his 

 stock goes down, away goes his capital. That is a 

 point I want to bring out. That is why I have only 

 taken the cash profits in my statements, and have 

 ignored any profits you get from the balance sheet 

 which includes the valuation. 



9031. A great deal of the cash profit which I was 

 alluding to is merely more or less illusory ; because if 

 a man wants to put back his farm into its pre-war 

 state, he will have to return a lot of that surplus 

 profit? Yes. 



9032. You mean to suggest that part of his cash 

 profit is derived from neglecting his farm ; and there- 

 fore he has to reinvest a great deal in his farm to 

 bring it up to date again ? Yes, I have no doubt that 

 is the case, but I could not say to what extent. 



9033. Still, it is more or less general? It is cer- 

 tainly undoubtedly the case that almost all farms 

 that I have seen are very badly in arrear now from 

 neglect and want of labour during the war ; and no 

 doubt they will be- very expensive to bring up to date, 

 and will want an extra amount of labour employed 

 upon them in order to bring them back into a good 

 state. 



9034. An increase of outlay generally? Yes; and 

 to that extent yoti are right in saying that a certain 

 amount of the cash profits which have been made will 

 have to be put back into the land. On the other 

 hand, one of the points I wish to bring out, and feel 

 justified in doing so, but which I could not prove as 

 much as I would like to have done by figures, is that 

 a lot of these cash profits huve already been put 

 back into the farm in increased manuring and im- 

 piovements in stock not larger amounts of manure 

 because a man got so little for his money; but 

 a larger amount has been spent in the form of 

 manure and improvement in the stock. I find that 

 very frequently the case ; and I was able to prove it 

 quite to my own satisfaction, but I could not bring it 

 out in my figures. 



9035. I agree that is so. Now, with regard to the 

 amount of labour employed upon large farms as 

 against small farms. I am not saying this by way of 

 running down small farms, because I do not know. I 

 believe in them, and I believe there ought to be 100- 

 acre farms and possibly less. But on the point of the 

 labour employed, do you think the labour employed 

 would be more on 4 or 5 farms of 100 acres each, 

 than it would be on one farm of 400 or 500 acres? 

 No. From what I have observed I think there would 

 be less labour employed on 5 farms of 100 acres than 

 on one of 500 acres. But against that, mind you, 

 there would be the occupier himself. There would be 

 5 occupiers. 



9036. Yes; but include them, because they would 

 naturally take part in the working operations? I 

 thought you meant the men employed. I stick to 

 what I said. 



90.37. You think a great deal could be done by 

 educational means? Yes, I feel that very strongly. 

 I think the farmer can do a very great doal himself 

 by interesting the men and teaching the men per- 

 sonally. 



9038. Yes ; but do not you think tho young farmers 

 want more education and enlightening? Yes, cer- 

 tainly I do. 



9039. By extension of Agricultural Colleges or 

 Demonstration Farms? By the extension of Agri- 

 cultural Colleges. I find tho influence of tho Agri- 

 cultural College very wido and immensely for tho good 

 of the countrv round about them. In our part of tho 

 world, in Abordeonshire, any man who wants to be 



I 



