86 



U.iYAl. (.'MM \ .M.IlHTl.TUKK. 



' . 



l)n. I.. .1 i: 



...u/. 



9006. .Ur. .-UA/.y: And tho uiue in respect of the 

 recei) toial cxjienditure, the total 



age, and tho total receipts in each case; the bai.m. . 

 you will get from the Auditor's Halai 



9009. Could we Inn.- it i.. i the whole 300 acres, a* 



well a* for -'!< i-.p. t give us a f 



the result* of the n..ie I.IMU- I hat comes in the 



Auditors' Balance >h.. ; 



2010. Does the cost ot ...,,., i,, r i.' i, as 



tatcd iun>. include beeU and lining- \ e. 1 ought 

 to point out thai IN.-. item iilni.' \\ill not 



agree quite null the Auditor's ll.ii.ni-.- .>n. ri, i. 

 he strikes oil his year at tin- end ot Septembei . .m<i 

 some ot these items go into October and later month*. 



3011. 1 suggest to you that in arriving at a figure 

 for the carry over of roots to wlieat. you should strike, 

 ott the seed and lilting expenses and carry oier to tlie 

 wheat vin.ii you Ulink is .. piuper J.I..JL.I u..u ol the 

 tillage and manures: To take the case of mangolds 

 they only cost J.1 per acre oiu ol a total expenditure 

 ol J.'Jy ISs. M. i Uo nut think 11 would make much 

 difference if you deducted the cost ; it is only a matter 

 of la. 6d. 



JUP2. The cost of lifting may vary enormously 

 according to the. Height ol me imp, and Uio cost ol 

 lining is of little art mi in uump.u i-u mill me value 

 of tlie \iiic.ii tii'p.' 1 he io.si 01 lilting luaile a dil- 

 feieuce in the carry over. 



2013. If you made a bigger proportion in tho deb.t 

 to the wheat crop it would i.c nn.ie saii.-i., 

 would it nut.-- W.s. The ligun> oi io per cent, is .1 

 purely conventional one, and is on quite a ditti-n-nt 

 basis n oin these other figures, which are actual c.i-n. 



2014. Will you now turn to your figures in 

 paragraph ;i, ho ing \our labour costs per acre [MI 

 annum. You will agiec, will you not, that thcsi 

 figures take wheat for in.-i.nn-c do not necessarily 

 measure the same amount of labour in each of the 

 years. The number and the nature of the operations 

 may vary:' That is so. 



2015. You could not arrive at any efficiency \ 



for instance, from a consideration ot these tigurc*: 

 No. 



2016. Now will you skip the next Table and turn 

 to the Table in paragraph o showing the numlirr 

 of horse hours. There is a big increase of 8 hours 

 per acre as between 1913-14 and 1916-17, in the case 

 of wheat. Is that not due in some part to the fact 

 that you omitted roots the year before and made no 

 more cleaning operations in re-pei t of your wheat in 

 the following yc.u :- That, would be a factor, of 

 course. It was threshing and marketing that came 

 more expensive in that year. 



2017. Was that- duo at all to increased yield-' No, 

 the yield was about the same. 1914-1.5 was 34 bushels ; 

 1915-1G was 37 are you speaking of 1916-17? 



2018. Yes. It would not be due to the yield in 

 1916-17:- No. If you no back to the Table you will 

 see in 1914-1") tlie number of hours was 32, and in 

 191&-6 they w.-re _'. an increase of 10. 



2019. I was taking 1916-17.- Tin-re, of course, 

 erery single :t< -m is up. and tlie cost of lalHitir is 

 rising. Tlie hourly i.ite. i,.r instance, had increased 



Id. tn '\. an hour. That, of course, makes n 



difference. Til aie worked out <m the itel 



rate. Overtime is counted as time and a quarter for 

 this purpooe. 



2020. Are the horse hours counted on that basis'? 

 ticsc are actual hours. 



2021. I was trying to arrive at SOUK- i> a -.on for the 

 so of horse hours. It is suggested that in 



1916-17 in tlie i-iise of the ci-real ciop tlie g: 

 number of hours mav b.ive been due to the fact that 

 more cleaning o| .icrc nei-essaiy I" 



there had been a decrease in the cleaning operation! 

 owing to the f"t that there wns no root crop in tho 

 prwoiling \ U lln-ie was a root crop in ihe pro- 

 redinc year. I soe your jwiint now; I had not 

 grasped it. The roots are wtruck out thorp bocaiiKe 



in Uiat particular year tlie Hoard asked us at a latu 

 hour to inak. -i .! lain expel inn-nts, and tho only tiling 



- in del 



.it loots to thuM< e\p.-i iniciiis so that they came out 

 from tin ordinary tarni accounts. Hut we got our 

 in reage of roots all the .same. 



-- i llic a.. ,..i .- .11 the i >IUUin 



may be due to that. m..i n i : li.it 110 did not 

 Illiss our root . rop ; lie had onr roots, but tli.-i .i<- 

 n- 1 for expei imental pu- . ili.\ do not 



appear in this particular -.-; of acc-ounts. 



: Haie you i-n-i mad.- any ub-ei vations Or Cal- 

 culati ni. reiatiie elln ieiic\ or the relative 



amount of work d a men ami wcrncri, 



or Us belneeu iiomin and children and men:-' No; 

 1 have tried to do that, but I have ncier t(Ucceeded 

 in getting at any - :y conclusion. 



2024. What rate of conversion have you used in 

 arriving at the man hour*: I'm. ly financial; for 

 example, if a boy is paid I'd. an hour and a man II 

 an hour, I reckon the boy as half a man. 



2025. If there is any difference in the relative 

 amount of work done and in the relative efficiency of 

 tlie women and children as compared with men. this 

 number of man hours does not really rep risen: man 

 hours, except from the financial JHiint of view : They 

 are the equivalent man hours. 



2026. From a financial point of view and not from 

 a work point of vii ' but I do not know that 

 you coutil get at it from the physical point of view. 



2027. Did you normally employ women and children 

 before, the war? No; we employed an occasional 

 woman. 



2028. I take it that the years in which women's 

 labour was most employed were the years 1916-17 and 

 1917-18? Yes. 



2029. Would you look at the first three columns in 

 that Table:' Your wages rates for both classes of 

 men wen- rising for those first three years? Y. 



2030. Your total amount paid for labour does not 

 rise quite as fast as the rates of wages, while your 

 total of hours actually falls, so that while you were 

 raising the wages in those t and presum- 

 ing you did not lose many men from recruiting, if 

 you were'in the same position as most farmers your 

 efficiency was risin^:' 1),. \,.u start from HMtir 



2031. No, from the year 1913-14. While your rates 

 of wages have risen something over 30 per cent., your 

 total expenditure- has not risen quife in the same pro- 

 portion. whereas the actual number of man-hours was 

 falling. I suggest, therefore, that during those 

 when you were not employing women and children, 

 the efficiency of your men was quite well maintained:' 



we diil not begin to sutler very much in the 

 early years of the war. 



2032. I do not want to say that during the t*rc r,r 



three Inter year.s there was no d' eflicieiicy. 



but may I suggest that the for man-hours 



do not measure the tali in efficiency, because of the 

 uncertainty of the rate of corn ersion on the basis of 

 thi> relative value of women and children's work -is 

 compared with that of men:- They are not in;. 

 as a quantitative measure of the fall in efficiency. 

 I do not wish to siif,^.- t that the aciu.il .. 

 the worker tell in the proportion of 40 to 28, aa 

 would be tlie case if this was a quantitat he measure. 

 I give them merely as an indication that there is a 

 fall. 



2033. Mr. Biitrlirlni : 1 should like to have your 

 total cropping rotation for this year. I expect that 

 will appear in the figures you are going to give in 

 the acreage of each crop? Do you mean in the year 

 just ending? 



2H:U. I should like this year's actual rop 1919? 

 t will appear in the figures I am going to give 

 you. 



2<).'fi. You have told us that you have given up 



potatoes and roots. What are you substituting for 



We are reducing our acreage of root*. We 



nro going to havo a mixture of grasses which wo shall 



