MINUTES OF EVIDENCE. 



31 



6 August, 1919.] 



SIR HENRY REW, K.C.B. 



[Continued. 



of the Realm Act are maximum prices; and those 

 maximum prices, obviously, are not in the interests 

 of farmers. It is no interest to farmers to have 

 maximum prices fixed. 



639. That is quite true; but the public demand, 

 and I think rightly, is that they should be fixed ?- - 

 I hope not indefinitely. 



640. I agree with you. The war period is no index 

 of what the agricultural future will be; and I am 

 putting it to you, if it were not for the prices now, 

 mixed farming could not be carried on under the 

 guarantee given by the Corn Production Act? If you 

 do not like to answer that, I will put ito you a simpler 

 question. In other words, is not it impossible to grow 

 wheat to-day at 45s. a quarter? Yes, at present 

 prices it is impossible. 



641. And, in your opinion, is it not impossible to 

 grow wheat at 45s. next year? Yes; provided the 

 prices the farmer has to pay remain the same, I 

 quite agree. 



642. Do you anticipate .the prices he has to pay are 

 going down for next year? That is a difficult ques- 

 tion, of course. 



643. Do you anticipate that wages are going down? 

 No, I do not anticipate that. 



644. Mr. Dallas says that they are going up? That 

 is not for me to express an opinion on. 



645. You are Vice-Chairman of the Wages Board? 

 Yes; but I am not controlling all their actions in the 

 future. 



646. Do you suggest that the prices of machinery is 

 going down, a'nd the cost of carte, wagons, self-binders, 

 ploughs, and those sort of things? Of course those 

 sort of questions are extraordinarily difficult to 

 answer under present conditions. 



647. You have the privilege of being an expert; I 

 have not? No; I disclaim that title in any connec- 

 tion, certainly in regard to the cost of carts. What 

 I was saying was, that if you asked me what fall there 

 is going to be in the case of any of these articles next 

 year, it is almost impossible to say. under prrsont 

 conditions. My general belief is that prices will 



fo down, unless they are interfered with, so to say, 

 y some extraneous causes. 



648. Ultimately, of course, they will go down. We 

 are only concerned with the immediate future? For 

 tin- : i!iMir' H:it>- future, it is very unlikely. T tliink. 

 that anything which the farmer has to buy is going 

 down. 



649. At any rate, you have told me that 45s. is an 

 impossible price, and I entirely agree. I understood 

 you to say you cannot suggest any other way of j-ro- 

 tecting the farmer, or I will not say protecting him, 

 but putting him in a position to pay present expenses, 

 except by a guarantee. You have no other system 

 to suggest than that? No, I can think of no other 

 better way of doing it. 



650. If a guarantee becomes operative, it means a 

 subsidy to the agricultural industry? Certainly. 



651. And we have this great industry simply being 

 maintained on a subsidy? Certainly; if the prices 

 naturally fall below the point, it must be maintained 

 by a subsidy. 



652. You know, of course, that under the present 

 Corn Production Act this subsidy, or guarantee, is 

 calculated on acreage, and not on production? Yes. 



653. Is' not that, in your opinion, the very worst 

 form of guarantee? You are asking me to challenge 

 the wisdom of the House of Commons? 



654. Wfl], I luave not much opinion of that. I am 

 asking your opinion as an expert? I would not say 

 it is the worst ; but I am not quite sure it is the best. 



<>."> Has not it got this effect, that it induces the 

 farmer to scratch his land and not work it properly, 

 simply to get the larger acreage? I am not sure; but 

 that may be so, of course, in the case of some persons. 



666. But is it not so? I think the ordinary incen- 

 tive to get big crops still remains under the present 

 form of guarantee. 



2612.-, 



657. But how? The more he grows, the more he 

 has to sell. 



658. On the contrary, if you fixed the guarantee by 

 the acreage, apart from the yield, what inducement 

 has the farmer to grow corn at aJl? He has to pass 

 muster with' his farming decently. I agree if he farms 

 so badly that he can be convicted under, I think it is, 

 Part IV of the Act, the taxpayer is protected? And 

 there is a further protection, as you know, under 

 Part I : that the man who makes a claim under Part I, 

 if he has negligently cultivated the land, his claim is 

 reduced, and, possibly, disallowed'. 



659. You do not suggest that that is going to work, 

 in practice? I do, most distinctly. 



660. Do you not see, under the guaranteee, as it 

 stands now, if a farmer is growing 20 acres of wheat 

 and he adds to it another 10 acres, h gets paid on 

 the average crop of 4 quarters per acre on the 30, 

 whatever the crop is? He gets paid. The figure Las 

 been used that the average price of wheat in the 

 market has fallen to 60s. Under present conditions 

 he is guaranteed 71s. lid. ; therefore he will get paid 

 on that 30 acres, or whatever it is, and only that. 

 I mean we are assuming he is using the land on which 

 there is no likelihood of getting a crop, or, at any 

 rate, he will get a very bad crop, indeed, which would 

 not be of much use to him in the market, and what he 

 will get will be four times the lls. lid. 



661. That is right. He gets a guarantee as if he 

 had grown 4 quarters on this land which he never li:is 

 done? But do you think it is worth his while, in the 

 event of prices dropping in the market and getting a 

 possible 2, or something like that, to go to all this 

 trouble of putting this Land under cultivation? 



662. But if this guarantee becomes effective, that 

 is the only thing we are considering. If he does not 

 get the guarantee at all, I agree there is no induce- 

 ment; but the guarantee is to help him to grow wheat 

 and pay the minimum wage. Would not it be much 

 better that he should be paid on the actual wheat 

 he does produce? May I say the point you were 

 putting was, that a man would put under wheat or 

 corn a certain acreage, and would take no trouble to 

 get a good crop on it? 



663. Yes, that is right? That is the point I dis- 

 pute. Of course he will put the land under, or we 

 hope he will. That is the object of it. But I still 

 think that the inducement to do his best by that land, 

 and get the best crops, still remaias. 



664. What is that? That he will have more to sell, 

 in addition to the guarantee. 



665. On the contrary, it makes no difference what 

 he has to sell. In the case put by Mr. Henderson, 

 with the guarantee of 70s. and the world price at 

 60s., he gets paid the 10s. on every acre he grows? 

 If he has a crop to sell off that land, it is better 

 that he should have four quarters to sell off it. We 

 will agree he gets a guarantee in both cases; but 

 urely it is better for him to have four quarters to 

 sell off that land than two, and he will do his best. 



666. You think so? It seems to me it is human 

 nature. 



667. Do you think it is a better way of paying 

 than on the actual weight ho produces? I did not 

 say chat. I do not say it is a better way than paying 

 on what ho actually produces; but you know the 

 administrative difficulties of paying him on the 

 amount he grows are much more difficult than the 

 method which has been adopted. 



668. Is not that easily ascertained by the people 

 who do the threshing? It is easily ascertained in 

 an individual case; but it is not easily ascertained in 

 500,000 farms. 



669. I suggest to you, in view of increasing pro- 

 duction and getting good farming, a guarantee on the 

 result of the quantity grown would bo much more 

 likely to be effective than simply on the acreage? 

 I am not disputing that as a general proposition. 



670. It was suggested yesterday that farmers are 

 persons of low intelligence. Do you agree with that? 

 I am not quite sure. Of course I take it from you 

 it was so suggested. 



