12 



K"VAI. 



At.KKTI.TI KF. 



1919.] 



>n: DANIBI. HALL, K.C.B., F.R.S. 





Which CoromitU**? The War Agricultural 

 the Kxecutive Committee*, who ordered 

 men to plough. 



333. My point ia this. According to your evidence 

 it ha* not increased the area? The area under the 

 I'll. ugh has been increased by nearly 2 million acre*; 

 I. ut I would not put that down to the Corn Production 



'lit to the much -more draatic action of the Wai 

 Executive Committee*. 



334. I will only refer to wages for one second. \~ 

 you said, the 25s. has no relation to the OOs., the 

 price of wheat. 26s. was the estimated amount at 

 which a man could hold body and soul together, 

 wan not it? Yea, it was at that time a minimum 

 wage. 



235. At the time that 60s. was put in the wheat 

 price in the Act, that was about the price of wheat 

 at the time, was it not? I think it was well below 

 the price of wheat at the time. You are speaking 

 of June, 1917. I think the price of wheat at the time 

 was then mounting very rapidly. It was 78s., 80s. 

 and 85s. 



236. How much area do you say at the present time 

 is under cereals? I will put it in another way : How 

 much out of the 100 per cent, of cereals that we use 

 in this country, do we grow ourselves at the present 

 time-' Speaking of wheat, we used to grow about 

 20 per cent. ; and we increased our wheat produc- 

 tion in 1918 by more than 60 per cent., but not 

 permanently, because there was an extra wheait 

 acreage put in over and above the gain to the general 

 arable land. 



237. What I mean is this: To feed the country 

 how much wheat do we require to import? We re- 

 quire to import four-fifths or perhaps three-quarters 

 now of the total that we consume. 



238. Has this occurred to you. that whereas we 

 only grow a quarter per cent, of what we want, if 

 you havei. lot us say. a maximum price to the British 

 farmer of 70s. and the Chicago price is 60s., what 

 is going to be the renult? The farmer will get paid 

 10*. on every quarter of wheat he grows. 



239. Above the market price? Yes. 



240. That means the consumer has to pay it? The 

 nation. 



241. I can imagine such a thing might happen that 

 tho guaranteed price might be 70s. and the world 



W. ami that the consumer, the Government . 

 or the taxpayer will have to pay 20s. a quarter bonus 

 to tho British farmer? That is what we conceive 

 might happen at times, and must expect to happen. 



242. I suppose you remember that the price un- 

 fixed for potatoes in 1917 at 6 a ton. and the farmers 

 were only too glad to sell at 3 10s. Od. a ton, and 

 did not claim a differenc. l)n you remember that? 

 Yon will agree with me that I am not claiming at 

 all that the Government should fix a price. That 

 i* just the thing I want to avoid. 



243. You fix a price that the Government will pay? 

 it return that they will make up to. 



244. No, the Corn Production Act guaranteed to the 

 farmer that it will pay him a certain price? No, it 

 does not guarantee to pay him a certain price. 



246. Whatever he has to sell under that, they pay 

 him the difference? They will pay him a difference 

 between the average price of the year and the 

 guarantee, yes; but they leave the market perfectly 

 free. 



246. I know that, so long an the market is above 

 thn price; but when tho market gets below the 

 minimum price? It is an equally free market. 



247. It in an equally free market until the farmer 

 "omen and demands the difference. However, it, is 

 jn-t as well wo should know th'in. A good deal of 

 examination, if I may say so, has been turned upon 

 the question of policy and politics. What I take it 

 your Board require from us and from the l.-tt.i 

 read to-day seems to be somewhat peremptory about. 

 and ask for an immediate report, though I do not 



w they are going to get it is what our Chair- 

 man properly said in a balance sheet of to-day and 



a balance sheet of to-morrqw. Now you know that 

 you oannot prepare a balance sheet of to-day or of 

 any other time unless you have the costs. -I am 

 afraid iu tins //M<M oi youis you do not give u any 

 assistance as to how wo are to frame the costs of 

 I'lodiirtnui on various farms. Take three kinds of 

 farms aay, a 50-acro farm, a 160-acre farm, and 

 300 acres and upwards. After all, as they say in 

 Scotland, one would be a one-pair horse, another a 

 two-pair horse, and another a three-pair horse. 

 Each of them would be very different, or at all 

 ovoute somewhat different, in their production ; and 

 what we would like to get, and we do not seem to 

 i or likely to get it unless we search it out 

 ourselves, in what the cost of production of cereals 

 on any of these farms is. We want to begin and 

 make our balance sheet, and we have not the first 

 item. We require the revenue from cereals on each 

 of these subdivided as you like, so long as it has 

 some relation to actuality. What we want is to get 

 our balance sheet, and see how much is the revenue 

 from each of these and what is the cost of working it. 



Chairman: I do not think we can get that from 

 Sir Daniel Hall. 



248. Mr. J. M. Henderson: No, hut 1 should like 

 him to say whether he knows where we can get it? 

 I think you will have to go straight to the farmers. 

 We can help you by putting you in the way of 

 certain farmers who may have figures to supply you. 

 AU my evidence-in-chief was that at the Board 

 itself we have not tho figures of our own production 

 which are likely to be of much value to you. 



249. I suppose your costs are pretty heavy, and 

 you would not reckon an ordinary farmer's costs to 

 be the same? Our costs are first year's costs. \\Y 

 have only been doing farming within the last year 

 or two. 



250. You cannot help us to get at these elements 

 of a balance sheet which we are asked to prepare in 

 order that we may be able to advise on the economic 

 position? Xo; I have no official evidence to put 

 before you on the point. 



251. Mr. T. Henderson: You said, in reply to 

 Mr. Green, I think, that you admitted farmers wem 

 not at tho highest level of efficiency. Do you mean 

 by that the usual imperfections of human nature. 

 or would you say a lower average than any other 

 industry requires? I do not know enough about 

 other industries. You are always apt to judge your 

 own family most severely, are you not, from being 

 in close touch with them. 



252. At any rate, you admit that they are not at 

 the highest level? Certainly not. 



253. Do you admit the economic effect of the 

 Knuwntoad price in iteelf is really protective; 

 that is^ fco say, it eliminates competition to a certain 

 extent? What one was hoping about thi.- 

 theory of guaranteed prices the guarantee which 

 is a security guarantee is that it still leaves all 

 those economic pressures to operate. The man who 

 can grow good wheat will get his advantage from 

 growing better wheat than the average, and the 

 man who can grow more wlie.-it will get an advantage. 

 This system of bounties, we think, has not the same 

 deleterious effect upon the industry that, say. a tariff 

 wall has, behind which certainly very imperfect 

 methods can shelter. 



254. But you would agree, I think, that there is 

 a certain element of i i^k in that. It may be that the 

 methods would tend to be stereotyped under a 

 guaranteed price as under, say, duties? I do not 

 think they are the same. If you are going to 

 guarantee the price that you will pay the farmer for 

 Ilis matt-rial, then T helieve you do awny with all 

 incentives to improve; but if you arc leaving the 

 play of the market, and only providing certain 

 guarantees to prevent what I call a knock-out blov 

 to the industry, you do not. 



255. Then, conceivably, an alternative to your 

 method would be to deal with the question of the 

 knock-out blow by itself and not consider it as part 

 of the general policy in the industry. What is the 

 objection to that policy? For instance, suppose tho 



