MINUTES OF EVIDENCE. 



19 



14 October, 1919.] 



MR. JAMES GARDNER. 



[Continued. 



13.119. Yes, it would have that tendency, but I 

 suggest to you it would not be a very strong factor in 

 bringing about a change in the system of agriculture 

 carried on in the locality? You are referring to the 

 system of sending lecturers on a special kind of 

 agriculture ? 



13.120. I mean from the point of view of converting 

 a pastoral district to arable cultivation. Education 

 would not play a very large part in that, because it is 

 directed necessarily to the thing the people are them- 

 selves doing? That is so. 



13.121. You say quite accurately that farmers in 

 Scotland are quite prepared to be let alone if they are 

 let alone altogether? Yes. 



13.122. So far as their interests are concerned? 

 Yes. 



13.123. Do you think it is likely that they will be 

 let alone? It is possible. 



13.124. I mean, for example, do you think, as a 

 probability to be reckoned upon, that the policy of 

 fixing a minimum wage in agriculture will be de- 

 parted from? I am rather afraid that it will not. 



13.125. Even if it were, that policy for the moment 

 has not had really any operative effect in Scotland, 

 has it? None. 



13.126. Wages are standing and have stood all 

 through at a very much higher level than anyone has 

 proposed as a minimum? That is so. 



13.127. So far the industry has been able almost 

 easily to bear the increase of wages? Yes. 



13.128. The same conditions, apart from State in- 

 terference altogether, will tend to fix agricultural 

 wages as have been fixing them up to now, will they 

 not? You might repeat that question. 



13.129. The wages of agriculture will always, by 

 competition, be kept in some relation to the wages of 

 industry generally? Yes, by open competition. 



13.130. Do you not think that that will be even 

 more the case than it has been hitherto that farm 

 servants have learnt to look at the wages paid in 

 other occupations? They have been brought during 

 the war into contact with men engaged in other occu- 

 pations, and do you not think they will have more 

 regard in the future to what is going on in other 

 industries than they have had in the past? Un- 

 doubtedly. 



13.131. So that you cannot really contemplate a fall 

 in agricultural wages unless a similar fall were to 

 obtain in industry generally? That is so. unless per- 

 haps in places far away from the industrial areas. 



13.132. Yes, but even so the tendency will be to 

 level things up a good deal, will it not? That is so. 



13.133. If prices were to fall sharply as you antici- 

 pate, or at all events as some of your members antici- 

 pate, in the next few years it will be impossible to 

 pay these wages and keep cultivation going, will it 

 not? If the price of your produce fell, you would 

 no longer be able to employ labour profitably at its 

 present wages? We might" not be able to get the 

 wages adjusted to a sufficiently low level to carry on, 

 but we could adapt our farming to doing with very 

 much less labour. 



13.134. That is to say you could employ less labour 

 and produce less food? YPS. 



13.135. That would not be equally possible in all 

 cases? No. 



13.136. There would be some cases where it would 

 be almost impossible to follow any svsfem of farming 

 except arable cultivation? There is some land that 

 would never be used for anything but arable cul- 

 tivation. 



13.137. But the tendency to decrease arable culti- 

 vation would be very strong? Yes. 



13.138. Have you anything to say as a general 

 conclusion with regard to the kind of guarantee or 

 the amount of guarantee which would be necessary 

 to deter the present tendency towards reducing arable 

 cultivation? I know that you and other members of 

 your Union have presented certain cost sheets. Have 

 you any suggestion to make as a Union within what 

 regions of price the guarantee would need to be? 



The only way we have considered it is the way I 

 outlined this morning the prinicple, not the sum. 



13.139. You have not thought of any figure which 

 would opply in the present circumstances? There 

 has been little discussion about that, but it certainly 



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looks as if we ought to be guaranteed a price for the 

 year in front of us at something approaching the 

 prices under present conditions. The whole guarantee 

 question as far as we are concerned would be the 

 principle of a modified guarantee over a long term of 

 years. 



13.140. You do not think it would be of much value 

 unless it were to be recognised as a more or less per- 

 manent policy ? That is so. 



13.141. You express no opinion as to what the scale 

 of guarantee would require to be for the next year 

 except that it would be somewhere in the region of 

 present prices? We have come to no definite find- 

 ing upon that point, although opinions have been 

 expressed freely. Probably it will be found that the 

 prospects for the next year are quite sufficient from 

 that point of view. 



13.142. I suppose in everything you have said about 

 guarantees and prices generally you are assuming 

 that the fixing of maximum prices will shortly dis- 

 appear ?- Undoubtedly. 



13.143. You would rather, I suppose, have the open 

 market pure and simple without guarantees than have 

 guarantees with fixed and controlled prices? Will 

 you repeat that question? 



13.144. Let me put it perhaps more clearly : If the 

 Government were to say, "You cannot Lave it both 

 ways: you can have the world marketer you can have 

 a guarantee accompanied by maximum prices, but you 

 cannot have a guarantee without being subject to 

 control," which course do you think farmers would 

 consider best from the National point of view? I 

 take it your suggestion is a guarantee which provided 

 against any loss and included interest on capital and 

 perhaps a small profit? If we had that sort of 

 guarantee we could not for a moment withstand tho 

 demand of the Government or the community to take 

 the commodity at the guaranteed price. 



13.145. You spoke of a guarantee on a somewhat 

 different basis this morning. You spoke of a 

 guarantee to' cover the bare cost of production? 

 Not to cover it, but to go up to the bare cost of 

 production. 



13.146. Not to exceed the bare cost of production? 

 Exactly. 



13.147. Rather than that you would prefer to have 

 a free market? Precisely. 



13.148. Just ono question about the suggestion of 

 co-operation which arose out of your cross-examina- 

 tion by Mr. Smith. I think there may be some mis- 

 conception, which I would not like to see. You spoke 

 of the oo-oper.itive dairies in the west of Scotland. 

 The impression left on my mind was rather that these 

 co-operatives dairies were regarded more as cheese 

 factories than as centres for the disposal of liquid 

 milk. You agree, do you not, that the co-operative 

 dairies are chiefly sellers of milk? Yes, chiefly as 

 sellers of milk and as dealing with the milk question 

 as a whole. 



13.149. In the absence of co-operation there was a 

 great deal of waste in Glasgow large quantities of 

 milk were thrown away in the summer? Yes. 



13.150. These creameries get rid of that waste of 

 milk by using up on the spot any surplus there 

 happens to be? Yes, that is so they stabilise the 

 whole industry. 



13.151. It is simply a systematic form of the old 

 method of individual dairy farmers using cheese mak- 

 ing as a means of stabilising the milk price? That is 

 so. Of course, you have the question of the sterilisa- 

 tion of milk, which makes it possible to send milk 

 on much further journeys now. 



13.152. Yes. At, the present time even without co- 

 operation, do you think there is really much loss of 

 milk through deficiency of transport? I do not know 

 whether you are informed on that question ? I am 

 not in the milk trade, as you know. I have merely 

 what you might call academio opinions about tho 

 matter. 



13.153. I rather understood you to assent to the 

 suggestion that the lack of transport facilities caused 

 a great wnsto of milk? I should not put it in that 

 way. I should say that the lack of sufficient trans- 

 port facilities helps to keep down the production of 

 milk. 



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