so 



ROYAL COMMISSION ON AGRICULTURE. 



14 Octabrr, 1919.] 



MB. JAMES UARDNKR. 



[Continued. 



the trttcm by which the principle is to be applied 

 to the particular industry, would that meet the 

 objwtion of tho employers in ngrii nlture, that in to 

 *y> R' vo them tlie flexibility lmli would enable 

 them tn c'i li'iiger working hours at certain p- 

 of the year and the power to decide what n 

 of overtime is to be allowed in the industry S.. long 

 M the master* and the men can decide these in 

 through the Conciliation Committees themselves, I 

 think it would be most unwise of the Government to 

 interfere and lay down any set number of working 

 hours in agriculture. But your question, of course, 

 goes further. You say if a stated number of hours 

 per week is laid down or a stated number of Lours 

 per year is laid down, the employers and the em- 

 ployee*, being at liberty, arrange among themselves 

 for shorter or longer periods of leisure. If that is 

 left to them individually to settle, my answer to the 

 question would be this: if the State did lay down a 

 limitation of hours within those two periods,- they 

 might not be sufficient, having regard to the 

 exigencies of agriculture. In a general industrial 

 policy, tho laying down of hours and wages for the 

 general industry of the country, it must be recog- 

 nised that agriculture occupies a peculiar position 

 from the fact that there is so much stock rearing 

 and earing-for to be taken into account. Your pro- 

 position certainly does leave a way out, but my fear 

 is. speaking for the farmers, that there would not bo 

 within the limits of those periods a sufficient time to 

 enable the men to take proper charge of the stock 

 and to look after the stock. That is my fear, and 

 I say that any statutory interference with the hours 

 of labour in agriculture is, in my opinion, a very 

 dangerous policy, because you have the question of 

 tho whole of the stock of the country hanging 

 upon it. 



13.391. If we are to take it that the view of the 

 employers in agriculture is that the workmen in their 

 employment are to be less favourably treated by the 

 State than workers in other employments, do you 

 think it likely that agriculture will be able to obtain 

 the best class of workmen in competition with other 

 industries? If you say they are less favourably 

 treated they would not get the best class of workers, 

 but my suggestion for getting over that difficulty is 

 for the Government to consider agriculture separately 

 on its merits, bearing in view the peculiar difficulties 

 relating to agriculture. They require to consider the 

 agricultural industry on its merits apart from other 

 industries altogether. 



13.392. I suppose you will agree that for the last 

 30 years in Scotland* there has been a steady drifting 

 of agricultural workers from the rural areas into 

 other industries? Yes, that has always obtained more 

 or leas. 



13.393. And that tho principal difficulty is not merely 

 because of tho number of workmen who leave agri- 

 culture, but because the more enterprising and more 

 virile of the workers tend to leave moro rapidly than 

 the secondary workers? That is perhaps too sweeping 

 a statement in my estimation as regards Scotland. 

 There is a certain amount of truth in it that the 

 best, probably, and more enterprising of our young 

 men have gone to our Colonies and Dependencies 

 and into situations in the towns. I am well aware 

 of that fact, but it has obtained always, and there 

 is a very fair class of men remaining. 



13.394. I should be the last one to suggest that there 

 is not a fair class of man remaining, but I think you 

 will agree the difficulty is to keep the workmen in 

 agriculture in competition with other industries?- I 

 should admit broadly that the agricultural worker 

 a* I have said many a time must be treated as 

 well, taking him over the average of the year, as 

 the industrial worker, or you will not have as good a 

 claw of worker. 



13,306. Would you also agree that the difficulty has 

 beon greatest in those departments of agriculture 

 where the hours have been longest for instance, in 

 the dairy trade. It is more difficult to get workers 

 on dairy farms, and to get the proper amount of 

 labour for dairy farms, than it is in tho ca 

 arable farms? Undoubtedly. 



13,396. Anything which places the workman in a less 

 favourable position, particularly if it were done by 



statutory enactment, would be likely to react un- 

 favourably on the whlt< industry? I think everyone 

 is aware that agriculture cannot be treated on in- 

 dustrial workers' line*. 1 think evcrxniie in the 

 industry, workers and employers alike, are quite well 

 aware of the special reasons why agriculture must be 

 considered as a separate question from the matter of 

 Mrict hours of labour. Tho conditions must be taken 

 as a whole, including hours and other matters. 



13,397. I do not think I suggested that they should 

 be treated on the same terms as other industries, but 

 that tho industry should be left free to work out its 

 own arrangements? Yes; but you see within cer- 

 tain limits. 



13,3!>S. I think you stated that your wages bill in 

 1911 was 1,100, and in 1918 3,000? Roughly, 

 1,133 in 1911, and about 3,000 in 1918. 



13.399. Was there practically the same staff? 

 Practically the same staff. 



13.400. Is not that increase rather more than the 

 increase in the rate of wages in your district during 

 that time? I believe it is, because, to explain that 

 matter, part of the rise was accountable in the last 

 two years, 1917 and 1918, to the extraordinarily bad 

 season in the latter part of the season, but especially 

 in the harvest and potato lifting season in 1918. 



13.401. You had more actual labour employed? 

 I had more money spent in casual labour. 



13.402. But the increase in the rate of wages has 

 not been proportionately so high ? Not quite so high 

 as my figures seem to indicate, but a certain amount 

 of it goes to the extraordinarily bad conditions we 

 had in the fall of the year in 1918. 



13.403. There is one point I want to clear up. I 

 think you said, in reply to a question which Mr. 

 Walker put to you, that your experience was that you 

 had not had an increase in production per unit of 

 labour employed in re-ent years? No. 



13.404. But I think you will agree that, taking 

 Scotland generally, tho number of workers employed 

 during the war pretty steadily decreased. Taking 

 Scotland as a whole, was not the recruiting from 

 agriulture greater than the recruiting to agriculture 

 either from the younger workers or outside workers? 

 I have not the figures. 



13.405. I put it to you that there uas a considerable 

 decrease in the number of workers employed : would 

 you be prepared to accept that statement? I would 

 be prepared to accept that statement from you. 



13.406. And that you had an increase in production 

 as a whole. You had more land under the plough, 

 and you had more work actually being done on 

 Scottish farms, whether it was tho same quality or 

 not, which resulted in a greater production in the 

 mass from the farms? I am rather afraid that a great 

 deal of that increased production came from land that 

 was broken out of grass. You see in our ordinary 

 cropping rotation before, that off the roots and 

 potatoes meant a very groat deal, whereas you 

 started right off your grass with more fertility in it. 

 A good deal of that production you sjx-ak of would 

 come from tho fertility contained in the soil. 



13.407. But it did mean that the smaller staff of 

 workers was actually getting through more work 

 than during the war period? I certainly should never 

 agree to that statement, because I know in my own 

 case they were working very well before the war. 

 Tho workers were always doing a good day's work 

 In-fore the war, and they certainly worked no harder. 

 I can only speak for my own place, that they worked 

 as well as they could, but certainly not harder. 



13.408. Your experience does not tally with the 

 general experience in the country, and I am going 

 to suggest to you that the reason is that prior to tho 

 war you had your farm staff so organised that you 



getting pretty well the maximum output from 

 them; and that what has taken place during tho 

 war \i-.f been through the shortage of labour and tho 



IN put mi Hi" farmers for increased production. 

 and tin-re has been a better organisation of the labour 

 supply available. The farmers had been making 

 iii'ire'usc of it. taking Scotland generally? It may 

 be the case. 



I.'MOO. To put it briefly, on a number of farms in 



ml the best use waa not made of the- labour. 



and there was a good deal of slack time which ought 



