80 



KOYAL COMMISSION ON AGRICULTURE. 



1919.} 





[Continued. 



1867. Generally speaking. I do not think I could 

 autm-er that without consideration. It nil depends 

 upon ho iniii-h corn you \voul<l want prodwad in tho 

 country. If you arc only going to use the Lest coi n 

 hunt \>u run' grow corn \er\ iheaply. Init if you are 

 going" to list- IKMIT land it c.uucs nn.ie expensive. Sup- 

 posing you \\ant tin- maximum amount of wheat re 

 gurdlcss : of pine you would bring into cultivation 

 MVOIld and even third rate hind; hut it y:ui only want 

 a small amount you nih- out all tin- third-da-* land and 

 much of tho second-class land. You can grow when at 

 anything from (50s. to 90s. a qfuarter. Tin- only dif 

 fen-nee it would make is that at 90s. you would bring 

 into cultivation a large amount of second clam land. 

 In our own particular case wo should probably have to 

 ip wheat cultivation if the price went below 

 0. to 85s. under present conditions that is. on our 

 olasa of hind. \\V have given up tho cultivation of 

 greens and arc giving up the cultivation of ]>otatoee. 



1668. Would you agroo tliat unless the Government 

 base their calculations upon the jioorer classes of land 

 producing crop- Ivlow the average that a good deal of 

 land will go out of cultivation:-' I'ndoubtedly. 



1809. Any calculation should be based on the poorer 

 class of land, therefore!- I would not go so far as to 

 nay that, because if you base your calculation on the 

 poorer class of land you enormously benefit the culti- 

 vators of the richer class of land. I think one ought 

 to consider how much wheat is required to be grown 

 in tho country and ha* tho calculation on that. 



1870. If you favour the better class of land you are 

 going to prejudice those who farm the poorer quality 

 of land and the small holders? Yes. I think it is 

 rather a question of policy as to where the line ought 

 to bo drawn. 



1871. Mr. A ii halls . When you mention here the fall- 

 ing off in the efficiency of the farm worker 1 am not 

 quite sure what the trouble is that you refer to there? 

 _ It refers more to the general labourer than to the 

 skilled labourer. The skilled labourer is the sort of 

 person one puts in charge of the horses. Jt is true 

 that there is an increase in the number of hours of 

 hor-e labour on our farm, but it is also true that we 

 ere handling larger crops than we were in 1!U:V I'M I. 

 which would necessitate a larger amount of labour. 



1872. You consider that the horsemen are all right, 

 but you have a proportion of men who are a trouble 

 to you? That is so. 



1873. They are not efficient? They are not as 

 efficient as the sort of men we got in 1913-14. 



1874. Are they casuals? They are mainly casuals. 

 1-7."). How long have you employed the men you 



consider efficient; are they men of old standing? 

 Yes, they are men who ha've heen with us for many 

 years 25, 30 and 35 years. 



1876. Is the trouble because the men are not really 

 an efficient at their job, or is it because the men occa- 

 sionally want to have a day off. and that you cannot 

 quite rely uj>on them as you used to be able to do?- 



I think both of those elements come in in regard to tho 

 unskilled casual person; he is the man that mainly 

 causes the fluctuations which you find in the table in 

 paragraph 5. 



1877. Do you have any piece work on your farm? 

 We used to, brut since the wnr there has heen a con- 

 siderable reluctance on the part of the men to do piece. 

 work. 



1878. Is it a reluctance on the part of the men them 

 selves or is it due to advice which they get from out 

 side not to undertake piece work? I have no evidence 

 with regard to that, and I should not like to say. 



1879. You find, at any rato. that there is a dis- 

 inclination on the part of the men to work piece 

 work'- Yes, for the time being; whether they will 

 go t.m-k to piece work or not I do not know. 



!--<>. Is nil your harvesting dny work?- This 

 harvmt it is. 



}. You referred to your land going out of wheat 

 growing, or to your having to give up wheat growing? 

 --Not whont. What I naid was that wo should linve 

 to givp up whoat growing if the price fell below a 

 certain amount. We have had to give up tho culti- 



vation of greens, and largely also to give up the 

 cultivation of potatoes because we could not produce 



them at. the fixed price. 



I --'. What is tho trouble with regard to potatoes; 

 is n not |M>tato-growing hind:' It is not first-class 

 potato land; it is distinctly .second-class potato land. 

 We could cultivate potatoes with advantage so long as 

 prices were in the neighbourhood of 10 or more per 

 ton, but when prices were fixed at 7 or 8 per ton 

 HO had to give them up. You will see that in the 

 last table in paragraph 7. where the potatoes were 

 icmunciaine right up to 1916, and then they caused 

 us a loss when prices were fixed to low for us, so 

 th.it we were automatically cut out. 



l--s't. What crop did you get of potato--- H tween 

 5 and 6 tons, but not high yields such as the Lincoln- 

 shire people were getting. 



1884. Surely you could grow potatoes at less than 

 10 with a 5 ton crop? We could do it at 10, but 

 the price fixed in our case was 7, so that we lost 

 money on it. 



1885. D<> you .say you lost money during 1!H7: 

 Yes, for the' year 1916-17 crop. 



lss<i. What were the wages then? The wages are 

 given in paragraph 4. In 191617 the wages were 

 25s. 6d. for horsemen and 23s. 6d. for the laliourer. 

 In that year I should say we had a yield of 4$ tons; 

 the yield was low. 



1S-S7. You really think that potatoes cannot be 

 made a paying proposition, say at 5 tons to the acre, 

 if they are sold at less than 8 per ton? Not on 

 our class of land not where you have to put in the 

 amount of lulx>ur that we have to put in. We have 

 a fair amount of weeding to do; the land is i. 

 heavy for potatoes, and you will see from paragraph 

 (> that the potatoes absorbed a good deal of laltour 

 520 man-hours in 1916-17 and (>7() man-hours 

 in 1017 H: they take more labour than anything 



else. 



1888. Mi: Lrn-iuinl: Do I understand that your 

 ye^ir is from Michaelmas to Michaelmas? Yes, from 

 October 1st to September 30th. 



1889. I notice in paragraph 4 you say "The ex- 

 penditure on labour has increased rather more than 

 the average rate of weekly wage, indicating a falling 

 off in the efficiency of labour "? Yes. 



1890. I follow that in comparing the 1913 figures 

 with those for 1917-18, but I do not follow it as re- 

 gards your estimate for 1918-19? -Perhaps I might 

 explain how that last estimate is arrived at. If you 

 look at the table of returns: "Net balance of 

 receipts over expenditure" the lust table in my 

 evidence- you will observe that in 1916-17 we lost 

 money on five crops, and in 1917-18 wo lost money on 

 three crops. We were heading for financial disaster 

 if we had gone on. so we had to revise our system 

 (if cropping. We reduced the acreage of our expen- 

 sive crops and increased the acreage of the cheaper 

 crops such as clover, and brought down our total 

 expenditure on wages, although we did not affect tho 

 cost of each crop. In l!H7-ls we have only got four 



of potatoes, on which we shall lose 10 an acre, 

 in-tead of R or I I acres as last year. 



1S91. It meant in other nords that you employed 

 fcw<r people!-' Yes. the numlier of hours is 25,000 



as :i-j.a ns: l< 1.000. 



I^'.I'J. Bo far as 'these figures go the fall off in 



efficiency s, ems only to IM> demonstrated up to 



Michaelma-. HtlS'r That is so. We come on to a new 

 system of cropping in 1!H-v 



I -;!i j !. That means, does it not. that the change in 

 efficiency is limited to the war period:- We could not, 

 afford to go on with H any further. It' we had 

 continued with our sy.stcm of cropping I have no 

 doubt we should have got at least a* marked a fall 

 in ofn'e-'eney. 



' During the war period agricultural labour 

 I.een depleted of its most physically fit and 

 efficient men and the older men have been left more 

 and more, but a Tier the conclusion of hostilities you 

 are getting a certain number of physically fit men 

 ie| urning to agriculture? Y- 



1895. So that thrw figures only demonstrate the 

 falling off in efficiency during the war period, do they 



