M1NUTKS OF EVIDENCE. 



63 



12 August, 1919.] 



THE HON. EDWARD STRUTT, C.U. 



[Continued. 



1448. All these illustrations tend to make cultiva- 

 tion possibly more difficult in future? Yes. 



1449. I do not think you suggested a price for 

 cheese? I do not think I am quite prepared to say 

 at the moment what the price should be. I have an 

 idea running through my head I have not thought 

 it out very carefully of something like Is. 3d. or that 

 sort of thing. 



1450. With regard to the efficiency of labour, you 

 thought that there was at present rather a decrease 

 in efficiency? I am afraid there is. 



1451. And a dislike on the part of the men to work 

 piecework? Yes, that is the real trouble. You 

 cannot get them to take piecework. 



1452. Do you find the same disinclination to work 

 overtime? In some cases, and in some cases not; it 

 depends very much upon the leading men on the 

 farms. On some farms they seem to work overtime 

 with pleasure, and to be very glad to do it. 



1453. That has a bearing on the shortening of 

 hours, because if you could get overtime worked 

 readily, you might make up the deficiency of the 

 shortness of hours in that way instead, of having to 

 employ extra hands? Yes, and that would be far 

 better for the farmer himself, because he would not 

 work overtime when he was not busy, and he would 

 not need to keep extra hands idle when he was slack. 

 There is a disinclination to work overtime on some 

 farms, but on others, as I say, they are glad to do 

 it. I think, on the whole, the tendency is for this 

 disinclination to increase. 



!-)")(. They want their extra hours of liberty? On 

 the whole. But it depends upon what you ask them 

 to do. At harvest time and hay time they will work 

 overtime, and on drilling probably and those sort of 

 things. It is very important from the point of view 

 of the farmer that his horses should be doing their 

 full amount of work. If his horses are losing four or 

 five hours on Saturday afternoons, the cost of the 

 horse is very large. You not only lose the value of 

 your man's time, but you get so much less out of your 

 horses, and that, of course, increases the cost of culti- 

 vation. 



1455. ^fr. Anker Simmons: You would agree that as 

 regards a very considerable proportion of the land 

 ploughed up, it really would be more profitable both 

 to the occupier and to the nation that it should go 

 back to grass? I did not say a considerable propor- 

 tion : I said some, I think. I would not go so far as 

 that. 



1456. There was a great tendency on the part of the 

 Agricultural Committees, was there not, to return 

 acreage as being ploughed rather than to have regard 

 to the nature of the land that was ploughed? I 

 should not like to say that quite. I was myself the 

 rii:iinii:ni of an Executive Committee, and what we 

 found was that our District Committees tried to be 

 fair to everybody and make everybody do their share. 

 Some people had land which was not suitable at all, 

 but owing to that idea that land was ploughed up 

 because it was considered necessary in order to be fair 

 to the others. Other people, on the other hand, had 

 a great deal more suitable land which could have been 

 ploughed up, but only a proportion of which was 

 ploughed up. 



1457. Labour is mo7-e directly interested in keeping 

 a big proportion of land under the plough than the 

 farmer actually is himself? Much more. 



145 y . It depends in a very large measure as to 

 what percentage of land is under arable cultivation as 

 to what the prosperity of our villages in future will 

 be? Certainly. 1 attach great importance to arable 

 cultivation for that reason, because if the land all 

 goes down to grass the population of the villages will 

 go down also it must do. Have you seen the figures 

 I have given you for mixed arable and grass farms? 

 If yon look at them, you will see the difference is 

 enormous. 



1 l">f>. Yes. You are quite satisfied from your ex- 

 perience- because that goes I ack, like, my own unfor- 

 tunately, to that bad period of tho 'eighties and the 



JM25 



'nineties that it is absolutely necessary on the part 

 of the Government in constructing an agricultural 

 policy to give the farmer in some way or other some 

 kind of guarantee against such a state of things re- 

 curring;' That, I think, is absolutely necessary. 



1460. You see no better way or alternative scheme 

 than that of a guaranteed price? I think that a 

 guaranteed minimum is the best way of doing it. I 

 have thought over these matters for many years, and 

 I have come to the conclusion that that is the best way 

 of doing it on the whole. 



1461. Any other scheme would involve the cost of it 

 falling on the consumer instead of on the State? 

 Yes. 



1462. It is fairer that the State should pay rather 

 than that the consumer should pay? That is what 



my view is. 







1463. With regard to piecework, you would regard 

 it from your experience as highly valuable that there 

 should be a return to the inclination there was in 

 pre-war days, particularly on the part of the good 

 men, to work by piecework rather than otherwise? 

 Yes. 



1464. It is your good man who adopts the piece- 

 work system? Yes. 



1465. Because in that way, and in that way only, 

 can he prove that he is a better man than his neigh- 

 bour? Yes. 



1466. It is not desirable in the interests of agricul- 

 ture that there should be too uniform a rate of pay- 

 ment under which the good labourer is paid the same 

 wage as the bad one? That is rather my view. 



1467. You have kept very careful accounts in rela- 

 tion to all your farms over a considerable period? 

 Yes. 



1468. On the basis of costing? Yes, a ledger 

 against each field. 



1460. That is what I was loading up to. The only 

 method really of ascertaining tho cost of a crop is by 

 keeping a ledger account against each field? That is 

 what I ithink. We thought it over a good deal and 

 came to that conclusion. We started this ledger 

 account 20 or 30 years ago. 



1470. I know of no other method of arriving at the 

 real cost. With regard to your suggestion as to ithe 

 guaranteed price for cheese, are you quite sure that 

 it would not be better to consider the question of a 

 guaranteed price for milk? What I have in my mind 

 is this: Suppose milk were at a very low price and 

 everyone rushed to make cheese, would there not be 

 a grave danger of a severe shortage of milk, which 

 is really from the children's point of view more essen- 

 tial than the cheese? I would have the cheese price 

 lower than the milk price. I would not let the 

 guaranteed price of the cheese bo as high as the 

 ordinary price of milk. 



1471. We have rather at the Ministry of Food 

 adopted the other principle of having a ratio at least 

 that is the one I have always advocated as between 

 milk and cheese, giving a certain allowance for the 

 cost of making the cheese. Do you not think that 

 would lead to more beneficial results than depending 

 upon the guaranteed price of cheese only? Tho diffi- 

 culty is that you very often have to find a market 

 for milk suddenly, and as long as the guaranteed 

 price of cheese does not interfere with the bulk, I 

 do not see any objection. 



1472. We are pressed very much to issue an interim 

 report. We take it that is wanted in order to 

 assist tho Government in forming an immediate agri- 

 cultural policy. From your observation of 

 agricultural matters generally, do you think that it 

 is likely that any guaranteed price of any eereal, for 

 instance, will be within measurable distance of the 

 market value which is likely to obtain during the past 

 12 months? It is very difficult to say. My own 

 view is, and T think it is the view of mosit of the corn 

 merchants I have talked to, that the market price 

 is likely to be higher. The farmer has never been 

 allowed to get the full price that ho can get for his 

 wheat. 



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