MlNtJTES OF EVIDENCE. 



14 October, 1919.] 



MR. JAMES GARDNER. 



[Continued. 



rightly, " Precisely," I rather understood from the 

 evidence you have been giving that what you advo- 

 cated was a low guarantee with an open market? 

 Yes, that is exactly what I have been advocating here 

 to-day a modified guarantee, or, if you like to call 

 it so, a low guarantee with an open market. 



13,178. That is what. I understood you to say, but 

 the answer you gave to Dr. Douglas rather contra- 

 dicted that. I mention it in order to make it plain. 

 I have l>een following your evidence carefully, and I 

 quite understood that what you had in your mind 

 was a i>olicy which would prevent a repetition of the 

 terrible times that English and Scottish agriculture 

 went through between the year 1880 and the end of 

 the century? Yes. 



13,17*\. Hi-, llviiyliis: That question of mine was 

 addressed to the question which he would think best 



if both together were unobtainable- if they were 



, j 



alternatives. 



13,17'.*. Mr. .-1 niter Simmons: You stated earlier in 

 the day that you have :i personal experience of those 

 bad times in the 'eighties and the 'nineties? Yea. 



13.180. You would agree that the real cause of 

 those bad times was the impossibility of farming in 

 England and Scotland being conducted on economic 

 lines so as to compete with colonial farming under 

 the conditions on which they were able to farm in 

 their countries? Yes, combined with tremendously 

 cheap freights. 



13.181. With regard to trnns|x>rt, what you want 

 to prevent in the future is the system that obtained 

 then, when you could get wheat brought from New 

 York to London at a less rate than you could get it 

 brought from Liverpool to London ? Ya. 



1 -'1.182. From a national point of view, can you 

 imagine anything that is calculated, or could be cal- 

 culated, to operate more against the individual in the 

 shape of the landlord, the tenant, the labourer, and 

 tin- State than such a system as prevailed during the 

 \i-ars of the 'eighties 'and the 'nineties? I could 

 imagine nothing more disastrous to all four parties 

 \<m mention. 



13.183. Do you think that people outside agricul- 

 ture have any idea at all of what agriculture went 

 through during those years!' Some <>\ them have 

 but others have not the ghost of an idea. Some of 

 those connected with agriculture are well acquainted 

 with the struggle farmers had and others have no 

 idea at all. 



13.184. When you mention, as you do in your 

 fireris, the more or less derelict condition of the equip- 

 ment of farms and drainage, and so on, you are dis- 

 tiiutly of opinion that that state of things was caused 

 almost entirely through the impossibility of landlords 

 beinjj able to expend the money upon their estates 

 which in better times they would be able to.do?- *i 



13.185. In other words, land-owning in the 'eighties 

 and the- 'nineties was unprofitable to the largest pos- 

 sible extent? Yes. I agree with that. 



13.186. Would you say that 1^ per cent, would be a 

 fair estimate of the return into their pockets that the 

 majority of landlords got on the value of their estates 

 in those years? That is the general belief. In Scot- 

 land I have heard it said that the landlord gets prac- 

 tically nothing on his land at all, but probably 5 per 

 cent, or more on the buildings that the buildings 

 and the general equipment were giving a small return, 

 but that the landlord was getting practically nothing 

 for the land at all. Of course that does not follow 

 in every i 



13.187. Does your memory go further back to the 

 more prosperous times of the early 'seventies ? Yes, 

 I remember that. 



13,1**. So do I. Was it not better for the indivi- 

 dual all round both for the landlord, the tenant, 

 and the labourer when the price of wheat was, as it 

 -ay, in the years 1870 to 1874, round about 60s. 

 a quarter? Was not village life better from every 

 point of view, except perhaps that the labourers were 

 not living under the conditions that we would allow 

 to-d;iy. f am not suggesting for a moment that wo 

 Ibonld go back to the conditions under which the 

 labourers lived in those days, but from the point of 

 view of the employment of labour and from the point 

 26370 



of view of successful farming, and of getting the best 

 out of the land, would you not say that the period 

 from 1870 to 1875 was a much more favourable state of 

 tilings for the country generally than that which pre- 

 vailed, say, from 1890 to 1895? Yes, I should cer- 

 tainly say so, with the qualification that you put in 

 on behalf of the labour that the conditions were not 

 quite so good then as what they are possibly to-day, 

 from the point of view of general comfort. 



13.189. Therefore what you would advocate would 

 prevent a similar state of things recurring as 

 occurred in those years? I do say that most 

 strongly. 



13.190. Can you suggest any other way of securing 

 a profitable price for cereals than by some system of 

 a guarantee? I think it is the only system, so far 

 as cereals are concerned, that can be suggested, in 

 my opinion, unless it may be by the increased use 

 of machinery and the other matters which have been 

 referred to to-day ; they all have a cumulative effect. 



13.191. On the question of the security of tenure, 

 you say that your system in Scotland has been a 

 system of leases? Yes. 



13.192. You also go on to say that that system has 

 not been altogether successful, and you intimate 

 that you want some improvement of the leasehold 

 system? Yes. 



13.193. It occurs to me that the suggestions you 

 make practically involve perpetual leases subject to 

 the decisions of a Land Court? Yes, that is so. 



13.194. Do you really think that would be a better 

 system than freedom of contract as between landlord 

 and tenant? I do. 



13.195. Are you aware that, generally speaking, in 

 England farmers have preferred, up to now at any 

 rate I am speaking from my own experience more 

 particularly yearly tenancies to leases? Yes. I 

 have heard it said that farmers did prefer yearly 

 tenancies, and I believe that they must have pre- 

 ferred them or there would not have been such a 

 very large extension of yearly tenancies. 



13.196. Does it not occur to you that a yearly 

 tenancy carries with it a certain amount of security 

 of tenure, for the reason that a landlord naturally 

 wishes to let his land, and would be unlikeV to dis- 

 turb a good or even a moderately good tenant? 

 What would ho gain by it? It all depends upon the 

 exigencies of circumstances. At the present time 

 there is the tremendous selling of land. That is 

 one case. There are other cases : a man may die. 

 One can contemplate several factors which might 

 come in to alter that. In my view it is entirely an 

 unbusinesslike method of going to work. 



13.197. If the Agricultural Holdings Act were so 

 remodelled as to give an outgoing tenant a fair 

 return for the unexhausted improvements he left 

 behind, would not that meet the case? I really do 

 not think it would. 



13.198. Do you remember the position of the lease- 

 holders when that avalanche of bad times which 

 commenced in 1879 occurred? I remember that time 

 in Scotland, but I was not taking much interest in 

 regard to your local matters in England at that 

 period. 



13.199. If landlords had not met their tenants at 

 that time those tenants who held under the high 

 rents which were arranged for in the early 'seventies 

 would have been absolutely ruined? I remember 

 distinctly what you are referring to. The landlords 

 at that time did give rebates on the rents for years. 



13.200. And in a great number of cases they tore 

 up the leases? Yes. 



13.201. With regard to the game . question, you 

 would agree that the present Ground Game Act is 

 very little security, so far as the tenant is concerned, 

 against ravages by game? That is so. 



13.202. You would agree that the chief delinquent 

 so far as damage is concerned is the rabbit? Yes. 



13.203. Do you not think that the case would be 

 met to a very large extent if tenants were .allowed an 

 absolutely free hand with regard to the destruction 

 of rabbits? It would undoubtedly help, but it would 

 not perhaps from every point of view be absolutely 

 efficient, as I have answered before. From the far- 

 mer's point of view it might be quite all right, but 

 from his neighbour's point of view it might not. 



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