132 



ROYAL COMMISSION ON AGRICULTURE. 



19 Auyuil, 1919.] 



SIR TUOMAB H. MIDDLKTON, K.B.E., C.B. 



3333. Mr. Grtcn. With regard to paragraph 10 

 of your evidence, in which you speak of the 100 to 

 300 acre farmer, was it your experience at the Food 

 Production Department that the most inefficient 

 farmers were to be found on the larger farms? No, 

 I made no examination of the figures in that respect; 

 I could not tell you that. 



3234. Do you think you get more efficiency on a 

 farm of 100 acres than you do on a farm of 200 or 

 300 acres? My point was this. I hare set it out in 

 my memorandum on German agriculture that on the 

 farm of from ICO to 300 acres which is so common in 

 this country, you have rather more land than a man 

 wants who is prepared to use his hands fully, and 

 rather too little on which to use his head fully. That 

 is to say, if you are a competent farmer, you can 

 manage more than 300 acres. It is a very general 

 statement, because 300 acres in one district means a 

 very different thing from 300 acres in another. 



3235. With regard to your system of abatements 

 of Income Tax, have you ever considered a bonus 

 system a system of giving a bonus for extra acres 

 being tilled, so as to get more land under the plough 

 for dairying as well as for corn production? That 

 has been considered very frequently. That sugges- 

 tion was made, I think, in connection with the 

 Milner Committee. 



3236. I am not advocating it; I am simply asking 

 your opinion. Do you prefer your own system? No. 

 I really put down these remarks as to Income Tax 

 because they were suggestions that BO far as I know 

 have not been made. Many other suggestions have 

 been made, and I thought you would be considering 

 all the suggestions that could be made, and that you 

 might agree to include those. 



3237. Do you not think that the statements made 

 by Sir James Wilson and other responsible persons 

 might lead to a good deal of industrial unrest among 

 farmers as to the likelihood of a fall in corn prices, 

 and psychologically would be rather damaging to the 

 nation as a whole? I do not quite know what state- 

 ments Sir James Wilson made to you. Do you refer 

 to his letter in " The Times " some six months ago!- 

 There are always certain persons who are optimists 

 and other persons who are pessimists, and their state- 

 ments have to be balanced one against the other. 



3238. It seems to me to be rather dangerous to 

 put forward statements like that if they are not 

 likely at all to be realised. You yourself believe in 

 the price of corn keeping up, do you not? The 

 point is that no one on earth can forecast the price 

 of corn. It chiefly depends on the weather of America 

 in the next two or three years. All one can say is that 

 it is highly improbable that such excellent harvests as 

 the United States has had an 1918 and 1919 will bo 

 repeated in the next cycle of five or six years. They 

 were extraordinarily lucky for us much better than 

 they were on the average of the 5 or 6 years preceding. 

 1916, for example, was a very poor harvest. 



3239. Mr. Edwards : In answer to Mr. Smith you 

 said that in your opinion our present system in this 

 country in regard to security of tenure and so forth 

 would prejudice good fanning? That is so. I will 

 admit at once that I have not come in contact with 

 the position in Wales as much as I have in otlu r 

 part* of the country, but I have heard it stnted on 



food authority that in Wales this lack of security 

 as had a prejudicial effect upon farming. I have, 

 heard that statement made, but' I have no personal 

 knowledge on the subject. 



3240. You must be aware, I suppose, that in 

 thousands of cases at the present moment the farmers 

 have to purchase their own improvements in the open 

 competitive market? That has been so recently. 



3241. You spoke just now about the psychological 

 effect a guaranteed price would have. What psych > 

 logical influence would it have on those farmers \;ln> 

 have improved their land and who have been 

 punished in this way recently? -It is likely to have, 

 a deterrent effect, and I am told that in Wales it h.is 

 hnd such effect I have been so informed. 



3242. Our system amounts to this, does it not : that 

 it really puts a premium on a man doing as little to 

 improve his land!* 1 would not like to say that on the 

 whole. 



3243. Leaving that, and coming to the main object 

 of our business here : in view of the fact that farmers 

 produce articles of the first importance to the nation 

 in a very thickly populated country, anil to all 

 appearances in face of a world shortage, why 

 is it necessary to give any guarantee of prices at all ? 



I think the answer is that farmers will not believe 

 that the prices will be stable for the next four or five 

 years. 



3244. We have a guarantee now, as you have already 

 said, which is much above the guarantee in the Corn 

 Production Act? For a year. 



3245. You have admitted, I think, that that has 

 had no effect:' No, I do not think I admitted that; 

 it has had an effect, surely? 



3246. In the case of a yearly tenant, how do you 

 expect a guarantee for five years to have this groat 

 psychological effect that you attribute to it? I think 

 that by Far the larger number of yearly tenants never 

 esp.'ct to be dispossessed at the end of the period. 

 Of course, there are a certain number who are un- 

 easy, and in their cases the guarantee would not be 

 effective, but the percentage is very small. 



3247. Are you not aware of the fact that the dis- 

 turbance of the tenancy at the present moment is 

 very much greater than it has ever been before? I 

 think that is likely; land has changed hands much 

 more rapidly in the last year than ever l>efore. 



3248. You spoke about grass farming and corn 

 farming. Do you think, in view of the fact that we 

 are not able to produce any article in sufficient quanti- 

 ty, neither beef, corn, milk, nor anything else I 

 cannot remember any single article except potatoes 

 possibly that it is really worth while for the nation 

 to interfere with farming in the way suggested? 

 The general experience of most countries which havo 

 increased their tillage is that although there is a tem- 

 porary fall in the production of meat, the meat pro- 

 duction is as satisfactory from the tilled land as from 

 grass land. It may certainly be more expensive and 

 more difficult to get, but in amount it is practically 

 the same. And similarly with milk as in the CUM' of 

 Denmark for example. 



3249. Your experience, of course, tallies with mine 

 exactly. I could give you plenty of concrete instance* 

 in which the farmer himself and the owner makes 

 infinitely more out of grass land than ploughed land. 

 Do you expect that the mere guarantee of price 

 suggested by you and other authorities will affect 

 these men in such a way that they will follow tin- 

 method of farming which would be clearly not so 

 profitable to them in the future? There is a largo 

 area of land on which, as you state, there is no doubt 

 that the profits from grass farming will be greater, 

 and I have indicated that under any circumstances 

 that land will not be likely to be ploughed up. But 

 there is a very large area of land in the country on 

 whi.-h the profits of tillage and grass are about even. 

 hut the risks in the case of tillage, and the capital 

 and the work required. arc so much greater than is the 



in respect of grass that the farmer naturally 

 prefers grass. The question,, therefore, is whether 

 in the national interest it is desirable that induc > - 

 ment should be given to the farmer to put his land in 

 tillage rather than retain it in gras. Personally, 1 

 think it is desirable in the national interest that those 

 inducements should bo given, hut of course other 

 people take other views. 



.3250. You do not mean you would be prepared to 

 advocate any system of compulsion in the future in 

 the same way as we have done during the war? No, 

 I do not think it would bo practicable in future. 



3251. Even in view of the guarantee of prices? 

 I do not see how you could do it ; you cannot make 

 a man farm against his "ill in peace time. 



3252. Yon speak i-i paragraph 14 of your evidence 

 of farming capital. You mention that farm capital. 

 even at the best, is comparatively little, and we have 

 had it in evidence before the Commission that agri- 

 culture, an a rule, is under-capitalised. What, in your 



