MINUTES OF EVIDENCE. 



Itil 



20 Augmt, 1919.] 



MR. CASTELL WREY. 



[Continued. 



examination just now would only be a matter of 

 repetition later on. I would suggest that we should 

 not go into the further examination of this witness, 

 but postpone it until we have had an opportunity of 

 lii-ing able to question him. 



< 'Iniiniiiin : That would depend on the convenience 

 of the witness-. We cannot ask him if ho is not dis- 

 posed to do so to come back here again. 



The ]\'itnrx.i: I am quite willing to come back if 

 it will suit the convenience of the Commission 



Mr. Jlitllas: Might I suggest we pro-eed with the 

 examination on the general statements the witness 

 has made, and deal with the costings and balance 

 -lu-ets at a subsequent period? 



I'luiinnan: Yes. I think that would be a prudent 

 thing to do. 



4()(i2. Mi . /. .M . Hi n<li-i:inn : Those are not balance 

 sheets; they arc only profit and loss accounts. A 

 balance sheet is a very different thing, and it may 

 be tin- witness does not want us to have it? Yes, 

 you can have every balance sheet. 



4063. Chairman: You will nee at the end of each 

 of those accounts, taking 1918 as an example, you 

 say : " Balance carried to balance sheet, folio 20." 

 \Vo do not have the balance sheet ; that is what Mr. 

 Hi-ridcrson is referring to? I have had no time, but 

 I am quite willing to bring them. 



4064. Mr. L<in<j1nl : With regard to profits again 

 in your best years, namely 1910 and 1917, your profits 

 work out for the whole of the I arm at approximately, 

 if you average the two together, 2->s. per acre:-- 

 1916 is -954 of a pound, and 1917 is 1-377 of a pound. 



4065. It is rather less than I thought. Those are 

 your bc-l, year- - "l 



4066. Would you attribute tlios,- profits to your 

 management a* apart from the exigencies of the 

 period working up prices? I should certainly not 

 iittril.uti- the whole of them. I wish I could; but 

 the Hoard of Agriculture have worked out those sta- 

 tistics showing that what the l.irmers had to buy 

 have LncreMM by about 120 per cent., and what he. 

 lias to sell has increased by 90 to 100 per cent. If we 

 take the higher figure that would be 100 per cent, for 

 what Ice has had to .sell, and 120 per cent, for what 

 lie lias had to buy. It you Oowcd 100 per cent, for 

 war time condition*. 1 think you might put the rest 

 down to economical management. 



4067. If that was so your profits in 1918 fell from 

 '::t.7'.Hi i'-V Id. in 1917 to C2.375 19s. 6d.? Yes. 



.|i)i;-v What peculiar circumstance do you attribute 



that to? There was a large increase in the labour 



bill that year. 



4069. Then may I put it to you in this way, that 

 you do not anticipate the profits achieved in 1916 

 and 1917 are going to be continuous? Yes, I think 

 they would be if I could get the machinery and appli- 

 cation that I want. 



4070. But is there any reason why you, in your 

 peculiarly favourable position, should not obtain cH 

 the machinery you need:- S"eJ because Major 

 Brassey has been contemplating selling the estate for 

 some time, and ho did not want to invest his capital 

 in machinery. 



4071. Then he too would come under the head of 

 some of these other farmers who are ultra conserva- 

 tive in their ideas? I think most landowners do. 



4072. If I may put it to you, I should not regard 

 yon as that. What I want to get at is this. You 

 hftVf> admitted that the average farmer from a tech- 

 nical standpoint at any ratu does not thoroughly 

 understand his business? Yes. 



Ifl7:i. 'Hie, i I put it to you that the profits you are. 

 n make in consequence of your special knowledge, 

 coupled with having an excellent landlord, are profits 

 that the ordinary farmer could not possibly make?- 

 I cannot say that at all. There are extraordinarily 

 line- farmers who make a great deal bigger profits than 

 T do : but they are the exception, I think. 



1074. How do you compare tbnt \-ith your sweeping 

 lion that they are ultra conservative, that they 

 do not take advantage of modern machinery, and I hey 

 itc, to markets six days a week and generally are 

 inefficient 5 I said the majority of farmers, I did 

 not nay all of them. If you look at the prfeis, you 

 will nee it is the majority of the farming community. 

 T acknowledge very gratefully a great deal of assis- 



25125 



tance I have had from some of the best farmers in the 

 world in England. 



4075. But they would be a very small minority? I 

 think they are. 



4076. Would you agree with me that on that basis 

 the majority of the farmers were making a loss before 

 1916? I should think they were, and did not know it. 



4077. Then they must have been possessed with 

 large capital, or else they could not have gone on? 

 1 think a great many of them existed because they 

 grew the .food they actually consumed. If they had 

 had to buy the food like any other business man would 

 have done, they would have been bankrupt. 



4078. You have got an extraordinarily generous 

 landlord. Would you put the rent of this farm as 

 being representative of the land in your county? It 

 represents the heaviest land in the county. 



4079. 10s. an acre would be a fair rental? I think 

 the rental is 12s. Id. I fixed it with Messrs. Fox, 

 Auctioneers and Valuers, of Peterborough, when I 

 went there in 1915. 



4080. And your landlord out of other funds keeps 

 the buildings in proper repair, and spends large sums 

 of money on the improvement of the estate and keep- 

 ing the roads good? Yes. 



4081. Those are advantages that do not accrue to 

 the ordinary tenant farmer? There is this about it, 

 that if he wanted to lease the farms at any time, he 

 would have had to have done it. 



4082. But is not it within your knowledge that a lot 

 of the farm buildings and the house the farmer him- 

 self lives in, are badly out of repair at the present 

 time? Yes. 



4083. Is not it also within your knowledge that in 

 nearly all farm agreements the farmer has to keep the 

 roads round the farm and round the folds and that 

 sort of thing in good repair, and leave them in good 

 condition when he leaves? The landlord finds the, 

 material. The tenant cuts them up, and I think it 

 is quite fair that he should repair them. 



4084. You have one great advantage it is impossible 

 to secure to the ordinary farmer, and that is absolute 

 security of tenure? I have not. I am giving up the 

 farm in October. 



40*5. But you have had up to this time? I am 

 simply the manager, not the tenant farmer. 



4086. You come and put points before us and they 

 have lioen contrasted with tenant farmers, and I want 

 to got from you what peculiar advantages you havo 

 outside the tenant farmer. Do you admit you hav 

 some? Very few. 



4087. Do you tell me that similar farms in your 

 district are let as low as 10s. an acre? Yes, and some 

 of them a great deal lower. 



4088. I think you also stated, or Major Brassey did 

 in his letter, that no interest has been charged on 

 capital. Is that so? It depends how you look at it. 

 If you look at it from a cost point of view, I do not 

 sop why you should charge interest on capital. If 

 you buy shares in a rubber company and do not get 

 dividends, you do not write it down as a loss. Why 

 should you do it in farming? 



4089. I put it to you the farmer farming on similar 

 lines would be bound to be in the Bankrnptcv Court. 

 This is my point; that in 1914 you lost 2,875 9s. 2d.? 

 I was not the manager then. 



4090. That does not matter. Someone was ; and if 

 you coupled with that 5 per cent, interest on the 

 capital involved, you would have lost a further 1.600? 

 What would you write that down to? Would you 

 expect him to draw 1,600 out of his bank, and say 

 he had lost it because he had not made it? 



4091. What I should say is that if an ordinary 

 tenant farmer farming a small farm which you put 

 at 2500 acres has made a loss of approximately over 

 4.000 a year, I should write him down as being in 

 the' Bankruptcy Court in very quick time? So 

 should T. 



4092. That is my point. You come here this morn 

 ing. and you admit that you have peculiar advan- 

 tages. You say that the tenant farmer is uneducated, 

 is ultra-conservative, and that he goes to market, th 

 majority of them, too frequently, yet you cannot show 

 results, as I put it to you, which the average tenant 

 farmer could, or he would not be existing here? You 



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