MINUTES OF EVIDENCE. 



149 



19 August, 1919.] 



MB. J. O. VINTER, F.S.S. 



[Continued. 



3724. On the same basis, in your district at 12s. 

 an acre profit a farmer farming 100 acres would only 

 get 60 net profit for himself? The farmer with 

 100 acres should be a workman a manual labourer 

 as well 9s a farmer. I think the worst economic 

 proposition in farming is anything up to 200 acres, 

 apart from the small holding. 



3725. I quite agree with you that the farmer of 

 laud up to 100 acres ought to be a working man 

 a man that works on the farm himself? He should. 



3726. Do you not think he is entitled to claim a 

 wage equal to that of the best man he has employed 

 on his farm 1 if the farmer works himself? What do 

 you mean do you mean that he is to be on his own 

 account or that -he is to be subsidised by the Govern- 

 ment ? 



3727. It does not matter whether he is or not. If 

 a man is farming 100 acres, and he is honest to him- 

 self, he will take out a similar wage for himself to 

 what he pays to his best man each week? Yes. 



3728. After doing that, his profits on the same 

 basis as yours would only amount to 60 a year, 

 even if as much ? There is the interest on the capital 

 also to be taken into consideration in that figure. 



3729. If a farm such as yours was cut up into 

 small holdings, with the necessary expense of new 

 fencing and buildings and probably boring for water 

 and other things, and the farmers had to pay higher 

 rents, do you think there is any likelihood of a small 

 holding in your district paying? My experience is 

 that a small holder has not a ghost of a chance 

 unless he works double the hours of an ordinary 

 labourer. 



3730. Mr. Lennard : Do you mind if I ask you a 

 question as to your opinion upon a matter of general 

 policy? Suppose the agricultural policy of the State 

 were to give the farmer the greatest possible 

 encouragement in corn production without the State 

 having to pay any subsidy except in years when 

 world prices fell to an exceptionally low level, what 

 sort of guarantee would, in your opinion, encourage 

 the farmer most? Would the farmer rather have a 

 low guarantee, which should be a minimum above 

 which the farmer would have the play of a free 

 market, or would he rather have a slightly higher 

 minimum guarantee combined with a maximum price 

 above it, or, on the other hand, would he prefer a 

 still higher guarantee which should be a fixed price, 

 that is to say, both a maximum and a minimum? 

 I think the ideal is a sliding scale, and what the 

 basis of the sliding scale should be is rather difficult 

 to say. I should apply the same remark to the 

 labour bill. 



3731. By a sliding scale do you mean a sliding 

 scale between the guaranteed price and cost? You 

 want to do what I have tried to arrive at, that is, 

 the cost of carrying on, and then you want to ascer- 

 tain the price you get for the produce, and arrive 

 at what is a reasonable return to cover the interest 

 on capital and the charge for management. 



3732. May I take it that the guarantee you con- 

 template would be really a fixed price? Not 

 necessarily. 



3733. The farmer would never get anything below 

 it and never get anything above it? Are you 

 meaning where would be the incentive for the man 

 to do his best? 



3734. Yes, which would encourage the farmer most 

 out of those three types of guarantee? I should have 

 to give some thought to that before I could answer 

 your question. 



3735. I thought in case you had an opinion about 

 it I would like to elicit it. There are one or two points 

 in your paper here about the future of farming. In 

 the second column of your table on page 5 of your 

 pamphlet, you reckon income tax at the full 6s. rate? 

 Yes, but I have cut it out altogether in the recon- 

 structed figures that I gave. That really was in 

 the first instance an abstract for my own purposes, 

 but income tax is not a charge upon a farm. 



2512:. 



3736. On page 8 of your paper dealing with wages 

 you appear to assume that the recent increase in 

 wages will necessarily mean an equivalent increaste in 

 the cost of labour? Yes, I do. I perhaps have not 

 taken it far enough, because I think that the higher 

 the waged are the less work we get. 



3737. Is it not the case just now that demobilisa- 

 tion is providing the farmer with a stronger type 

 of man than that which recruiting had left at the 

 farms during the war period, and would you not 

 consider it possible that the rise in wages may be to 

 some extent counterbalanced by the improved physique 

 of the labourers who are made available by demobili- 

 sation? I am not sure that I quite catch the point. 



3738. My point is this: Do you consider that the 

 increase in wages which happened to come just at the 

 end of the war when demobilisation was beginning 

 will involve an equivalent increase in the cost of 

 labour? Yes. I think so. 



3739. I suggest to you that at the same time that 

 the wages have been raised the quality of your labour 

 is being improved because of the better physique 

 of the men released by demobilisation? I do not 

 admit it at all events we are not getting the advan- 

 tage of that quality. 



3740. Do you not think that that is perhaps due 

 to a temporary reaction in the case of the men who 

 have been demobilised? No, I do not think so. I 

 think that the conditions under which the agricultural 

 labourer lived before the war were very different 

 from what they are now, and that he will expect, 

 and I think he is entitled to it, more freedom and 

 more pleasure in life and that that will increase 

 the cost of the produce. 



3741. I understand that as compared with the pre- 

 war perior, but you have been speaking of the in- 

 crease which has taken place this spring. Along 

 with that increase I put it to you there is also coming 

 a change in the quality of the labour as compared 

 with what it was, we will Say, a year before the 

 Armistice? I do not want to say harsh things about 

 the agriculural labourer, but it appears to me that 

 the more wage you give him I think there is less dis- 

 position on his part to work. I think there is more 

 time wasted. 



3742. Yes, but if the man is stronger will the 

 labour not be more efficient now than it was during 

 the war? He need not exercise his strength. 



3743. An equivalent output of sweat from a strong 

 man means a greater output, does it not? Yes, but 

 you are stating what is a truism ; we do not get it. 



3744. This paper, " The Future of Farming," 

 which you have prepared, and which has been referred 

 to so much, I understand was read in April of this 

 year before a gathering of practical farmers at Cam- 

 bridge? Yes, 



3745. I notice on page you say that 60s. per 

 quarter is the very lowest price at which wheat can be 

 produced to show a living profit, and that that state- 

 ment was greeted with cries of " No, no." Does that 

 mean that some of your audience thought that your 

 figure was an over-estimate? You see, when corn 

 goes down there will be a very considerable reduc- 

 tion in the cost of the artificial manures, and pre- 

 sumably a decreased oodt of raw material which will 

 affect the tradesmen's account. It is a pure esti- 

 mate, but I think that is quite possible, and the 

 position might be as good in that case at 60s. a 

 quarter as it is to-day at 70s. But, as I say, it is 

 all estimate. 



3746. What do you think this difference of opinion 

 meant when your audience disagreed with that state- 

 ment of yours which I have just read to you? Did 

 they think that 60s. per quarter was too much or 

 too little? Too little there is no doubt about that. 



3747. Mr. Nicholls: Is this farm of yours run really 

 by a foreman is your farm in charge of a foreman 

 who lives on the farm? Yes. 



3748. You live some distance away, do you not? 

 Yes. 



K4 



