MINUTES OF EVIDENCE. 



147 



19 August, 1919.] 



MR. J. O. VISTER, F.S.S. 



[Continued. 



3661. Quite so. Do your Tradesmen's Accounts 

 include anything for feeding stuffs? No. 



3662. No cakes? No. I explained that. I only 

 take the net meat after the cake bill has been paid. 



3663. It is all kept separate ? Yes. 



3664. I suggest to you that 1 is too low for the 

 future? I cannot say as to the future; I can only 

 deal with things as they are. 



3665. I think you have explained how you have 

 arrived at the receipts, 10 guineas? Yes, I have 

 revised that. 



3666. Have you any experience yourself of farming 

 the heavy lands in Cambridgeshire ? None whatever. 



3667. None of the three or four horse land? No. 

 The only knowledge I have is just from what I hear 

 at markets, and so on. I have no practical know- 

 ledge. 



3668. Mr. Edicards : As far as I have followed, you 

 have said nothing with regard to security of tenure. 

 I should like to have your views on that? I have 

 been told since I put this down that the question of 

 the security of tenure was not to be considered by 

 this Commission. 



3669. Chairman: It might be discussed? I have 

 very little to say about it except that I think it 

 desirable that there should be security. I think that 

 leases should be for not less than 14 years. A man 

 may take a farm in a bad state, and I think the old 

 adage is a very true one- one year's seeding " for 

 seven years' weeding. If a man had to do seven 

 years' weeding he might be improving the farm all 

 the time for somebody who was going to succeed him 

 the following year, and therefore at the lowest I 

 should say there should be security of tenure for not 

 less than 14 years. 



3670. Assuming your man gets a 14 years' lease, 

 looking at it from the national point of view, what 

 is the usual result when you come to the end of the 

 14 years, or nearly to the end of them ? When a man 

 arrives at 12 years out of the 14 years, what do you 

 expect as the usual resxilt of his farming of that land? 

 Do you mean what is to happen at the end of 14 

 years ? 



3671. No, I mean a man having a lease for 14 

 12 years of which has run, what method of farm- 

 ing is that man likely to follow during the last two 

 years of his lease? That would apply if it was 21 

 years, or 28 years, or whatever it was. 



:t<;7'J. Exactly. He would want to know where he 

 was, would he not ? He would still be unsecure 1 ? 

 <>nld not be so secure during the last two years 

 of his lease as he was previously. 



3673. And therefore he would be likely to allow 

 the farm to deteriorate? That depends upon the 

 landlord, does it not? 



3674. Mr. Green: You sowed 183 acres of the corn 

 out of 320 acres, did you not? Yes. 



3*i7"). When you planned your sowing last Michael- 

 mas you had only a guaranteed price of wheat in 

 front'of you of 65s.? Ye*. 



.';?<;. Was it not rather rash of you to sow, so many 

 acres of corn, with only a guaranteed price of 65s. in 

 front of you ? Yes, if you could do as you liked, but 

 you cannot in farming; you must follow a certain 

 rotation. 



:u;77. May we take it that you felt rather secure 

 with a guaranteed price of 66s.? You could not do 

 that, because the effect of the Government control 

 was that you did not sow seeds into your corn, and 

 therefore it must take another year to rectify. I 

 anticipate that many farmers will keep their seeds 

 down now for two or three years instead of plough- 

 ing them up every year, but under the Government 

 control when we were obliged to cross crop to keep 

 up to a certain acreage we could not do that, and 

 therefore we had last year to follow lines very similar 

 to the year before. 



25125 



3678. On page 7 of your pamphlet you say : 

 " Assuming that the cost of imported wheat fell to 

 40s. per quarter, the account would then stand 5/7ths 

 at 40s. per quarter and 2/7ths at 60s. per quarter, 

 showing an average cost of 45s. 8s." Are you really 

 afraid of imported wheat falling to 40s. per quarter? 

 I do not think that this quite arises out of this 

 enquiry. That was rather a hypothetical proposition 

 which one usually takes in writing a paper of that 

 sort. 



3679. I should like to point out to you that it has 

 a direct bearing upon guaranteed prices? If you 

 maintain the price of the 41b. loaf at 9d., which is 

 equivalent to about 60s. a quarter, and you import 

 5/7ths of the wheat, and you get it at 40s. a quarter, 

 there is a profit which I think I estimated at some- 

 thing like 25 million pounds to the Government which 

 they would be able to use as a subsidy for farmers 

 for the growth of barley and oats, and perhaps other 

 things. That is the general proposition. 



3680. In view of the fact that there was a Royal 

 Commission in 1881, and the English Government 

 sent over two gentlemen to the United States to 

 enquire into the cost of wheat landed at Liverpool, 

 it may be some comfort to you to know that the 

 cost at that particular date landed at Liverpool was 

 said to be 2 7s. 9Jd. per quarter? Yes. 



3681. I put it to you that, considering the extra 

 cost of production in the States, -and the fact that 

 the wheat must be sea-borne for a great distance, 

 there is not much chance of wheat being imported 

 into this country at less than, say, 70s. a quarter? 

 I do not dispute that at all ; it may be so. 



3682. Mr. Thomas Henderson: What exactly is 

 your basis of calculation, with regard to page 5, of 

 your wheat? You did not keep a costings account 

 for each field, did you? No. Those are the actual 

 results. 



3683. These represent simply the total expenditure 

 for the average farm? Yes, that is right. 



3684. They bear no absolute relationship to the 

 cost of cereals? They bear no relationship to the 

 cost of any particular crop. 



3685. You take a somewhat depressing view of 

 farming as an occupation, I gather? I think that 

 without a Government subsidy, when we have got 

 over the world shortage and the exchanges are right, 

 that agriculture is doomed. 



3686. You have said that it was the most 

 unremunerative business in the country? It was. 



368". That judgment was ba'ed on your own statis- 

 tical data, was it not? I have a very much longer 

 experience than what I state here. In 1865 I was a 

 pupil in Yorkshire learning farming. I kept a diary 

 of what was done every day, and I have got it now, 

 and I am able to say, although they went through 

 the good times after the American War, there was 

 hardly any farmer who left, when he died, more than 

 what he started with. 



3688. Has that always been your opinion regarding 

 farming? Yes, always. 



3689. I was pursuing some researches of my own 

 and I came across, in the Journal of the Statistical 

 Society, a passage in a statement before them in the 

 year 1905, in which you expressed a somewhat differ- 

 ent view. It says, " With regard to tenant farmers, 

 Mr. Vinter's impression was that, while it could not 

 be said they had made fortunes, they had made suffi- 

 cient profits "? In 1905? 



3690. Yes. And it goes on to say that that 

 impression was entirely borne out by your own per- 

 sonal experience of farming? I did not say there 

 was not a living in normal times. 



3691. You go on to say that you very seldom see a 

 farmed in the "Gazette"? That is so. 



3692. In fact, shall I say you took a very good 

 businesslike view of the prospects of farming then ? 

 I was wondering whether you had had any experience 

 since 1905 which caused you to be so very pessimistic 

 as you are to-day? Yes. 



K 3 



