(il 



If'YAI. CttM.MlSSlnN iiX AOR1C1 I.Tl UK. 



1* Afu*t. 1919.] 



THE HON. HI-WARM STBUTT, < II 



. 



147:1 All tin- guaranteed price* have been aguuut 

 the farmer *- YM. lie would probably have got an- 

 other 86. a quarter, would lie not, or something like 

 that)* 



1474. Do you think theic is tin- slightest risk, 

 posing the QOTWUMBl did not declare it* |K>|I 

 onoe, of any farmer of arable land n.t cultivating 

 land with a view to obtaining the beat rciiult.- 

 the produce point of view during tin- next \'2 months: 



1 think there il, because t..i -,,me reason or .1-1 

 other- I do not quite know why the farmers. 

 least those whom I have talked to. are all anxious 

 to kuow whore they are. ind it is vory reasonable, 

 I think, that they should. 



1476. We do not all think. You yourself from 

 your wide experience would not cultivate your land 

 any differently if a policy wore- declared, or if it urn 

 not declared, within the next three months:' I do 

 not think I should myself. hut 4 have a little fear 

 that the Government might <ln something or another 

 in tho way of perhaps Ill-inking all the American 

 wheat over here for practically nothing, and putting 

 the price down and the farmer heing told that that 

 is the market price. 



1476. Dealing with your No. 1 statement of revenue 

 expenses on the 4.550 working acres, I am rather 

 struck with the very large increase which you antici 



Fate on the item of labour for tin- year 1919-20?- 

 base that on an average of seven weeks commencing 

 on the 1st June-to the middle of July of the various 

 vears 1913 to 1919. You will see it on Table 1 (A). 

 That is the reason I took that figure. This is not 

 an estimate: it is a fact. It i- wh.it actually 

 happened. 



1477. We may take it that all the figuras you have 

 supplied us with that refer to every year Tip to 1918 

 are actual figures taken from your books? Yes. 



1478. The only estimates are those which refer to 

 the year 1919? Yes; but I formed my figures with 

 regard to labour on the actual facts of the seven 

 weeks between June and July of this year. You 

 must remember that June of this year was a very 

 light labour month compared with what it often is. 

 and in July we had very little hay and the weather 

 was also very dry. 



1479. On the question of milk, what would be the 

 rile in the case of your milker? Assuming your 

 milker was paid 17s. pre-war, what would your milker 

 be paid to-day? I can tell you what my milk is 

 costing to-day, which is a better guide than the 

 other. My milk at the present rate is costing me 

 9 a cow for labour. 



1480. Over what period is that? That is the aver- 

 age of the year, taking summer and winter. Before 

 the war it was something about 3- it might have 

 been three guineas, or something of that sort. 



1481. That is the total labour in connection with 

 the cow? Yes, per cow. 



1482. Take the last item hut one, sundries, is there 

 not a mistake there in the typing? You have put it 

 that the sundries rise from 636 12s. 8d., the average 

 of the three years 1912, 1913, and 1914, to 2,058 in 

 1918. Should that not be 1,058, because your 

 estimate of the probable cost for 1919-20 is 1,273?- 

 You mean we are so high in 1918? 



1483. Yea? I do not know why they were high, 

 but they were high in 1918. They were only 636. 

 the average of 111]'.', 1!13 and 1914,' nnd I have taken 

 100 per cent, as the increase. These 1!U8 accounts 

 were put in afterwards, and they show that I under 

 estimated it a good deal, as it seems to me. 



1484. I follow now You are calculating that the 

 expense of 1919-20 will be 100 per cent, more- than 

 1912, 1913, and 1914 and this year's figures?- Yes; 

 I am not working from the 1918 figures at all. The 

 1918 figure w only pnt in for the purpose of informa- 

 tion. 



1486. The actual expenditure in 1918 was over 

 2.000? Ye*. 



1486. So that that shows that your estimate is 

 rather below than above? Yen. During the war we, 



have had a lot of sundry expense* that shall not 

 have now. Kurmer- hr.vc had a lot to put up with 

 during the war. 



1487. On this point of a guaranteed price for 



wheat, you say that 60., in your opinion, for eight 



years w'lll U-'tair- 1 think, on tin- whole, u would 



give more confidence and that it is worth while having 



v at it. 



I !--. I take it you have in your mind that it 

 uonlil be undesirable from a national point of view, 

 anil also to a large extent from tho agricultural 

 point of view, to suggest any kind of guarantee 

 which would be going beyond an insurance against 

 it-rtain !- I "I "iir wont my view? 



exactly. 



1489. That it is not in the interests of agriculture 

 to put such a guarantee us would check the efficient 

 man and make the lazy man lazier still!' Yes. I 

 think this guarantee i-. as much as we should reason- 

 ably ask tor. I think it is \i-ry in,|Mirtant that the 

 farmer should not ask for too much : that is my view. 



1490. A high guarantee would in a sense discourage 

 rather than encourage high production, and your 

 guarantee would induce the man to use every en- 

 deavour to Jo his best in the way of production ?- 

 TTp to a point, I think, it is so. hut I do not think 

 I should go so far as to say that. I think the farmer 

 has been producing as hard as it has been possible 

 for him to do lately. I should put it iji this way. that 

 if you make it 60s. you will get the farmer to produce 

 as hard as he can. If you go beyond tills., you will be 

 giving a wheat subsidy at once. 



1491. I am rather struck by some of your figures 

 as to the cost of production of the 1918 wheat crop. 

 For horse cultivation previous to harvest you have 

 put down 1 18s. 3d. per acre, and for hand labour 

 previous to harvest 1 Is. 6d. Those figures strike me 

 as being extremely low. What was that wheat after? 



It was 285 acres of wheat. I cannot tell you what 

 crop it followed. 



1492. It was on one farm? Yes. It would be after 

 different crops some of it would be after beans and 1 

 eome of it after oats, and so on. and some of it after 

 wheat. 



1493. You have told us that you think the item for 

 threshing and delivering is too small .- > 



1494. My experience of this last year is that you 

 could not thresh nnd deliver under 8s. a quarter? 

 No. It ought to be a shilling more as I have said, 

 and I think very likely it ought to be 2s. more, 

 because the threshing costs a tremendous lot of money. 

 There was a great deal of straw, and instead of thresh- 

 ing 50 or 60 quarters in the day. yon only threshed 20 

 or 30. 



1495. Mr. (h-i-riinin : In the third paragraph 

 of your prfris you say: "It is hoped that the 

 larger part of the grass land which has Been ploughed 

 up during the war should, if possible, remain in 

 arable cultivation." You have already stated that 

 you think the best way to attain that object is under 

 the Corn Production Act? Yes. 



1496. You are a believer in the Corn Production 

 Act? I am. 



1497. Do you seriously think that the moment has 

 eome when the farmer would be satisfied if you gave 

 him an offer of 60s. a quarter for his wheat for the 

 next year? As I told Dr. Douglas, I do not think the 

 farmers would be enthusiastic over it, but I think 

 when they come to think it oxer many of them will 

 have a try at it. 



1498. We know from the evidence of officials of the 

 Board of Agriculture whom we have had before us 

 that land U now going down to grass even at present 

 prices? That is because farmers believe the present 

 prices are not going to continue". 



1499. With regard to the cost of production of an 

 acre of wheat, which you put at 14 11s. 9d., and 

 which, I am sure, is a low one, assuming the yielil to 

 be four quarters to the acre and the guaranteed price 

 to the farmer to be 60s., that would amount to 12, 

 so that you would be putting wheat on the black list 



