ROYAL COMMISSION ON AGRICULTURE. 



il October, 1919.] 



MB. E. M. NUNNBLBY. 



popular, land is being sold rapidly all over tho 

 country? I did not know it) was because the position 

 of the landlord was made unpopular. I thought it 

 was that they could make more money for tho land 

 and could get more interest on their money elsewhere. 



14.909. If you object to the phrase, wo will say that 

 landowners are not caring to hold their property. 

 Do you agree with it? I thought it was because they 

 could get more interest for their money elsowl. 



14.910. Anyway, they want to be out of it. I 

 suppose so, if they sell it. They want to get the best 

 interest they can for their money. 



'14,911. The complaints we have heard here 'are 

 that tenants have been compelled to buy? Yes, 1 

 have been myself. I do not like it at all. I did not 

 want to buy. 



14.912. It seems to me, your view is that you ought, 

 without purchasing, to have similar rights to those 

 which a man who has bought has? I have never said 

 that. . 



14.913. But is that not what is meant by security 

 of tenure? No, I do not think so at all. Wli.u 

 I huve always contended is that if a man is turned 

 out unfairly, for a reason that is not really sufficient, 

 he should be compensated for any monetary loss he 

 sustains through it. 



14.914. If he has entered into a contract by which 

 h can give up the farm at a year's notice, and can 

 receive a year's notice, is the unfairness that you 

 speak of that the contract is performed by one side 

 or the other? It all depends on the conditions of 

 that contract, whether it is fair. 



14.915. He has made the contract for a yearly 

 tenancy. It is not unfair if the tenant gives a year's 

 notice I understand? I want to make it fair on 

 both sides, and I have always triid to do so. I do 

 not know whether you have seen the Bill that has 

 now been put forward, which was practically drawn 

 up by me, for alteration of the Agricultural Holdings 

 Act, which I have put forward on behalf of the 

 Farmers' Union. I contend that that does secure the 

 landlord in every right he has. It leaves tho land- 

 lord perfectly free to give the tenant notice to quit 

 at any moment he chooses, only if by so doing he in- 

 flict* loss on the tenant, he has to compensate him for 

 the loss if he cannot show a, fair reason for doing it. 



14.916. And if the tenant gives unfair notice to 

 the landlord and inflicts loss on tho landlord, what 

 then? I do not think it ever does, if the tenant gives 

 it up in fair condition. 



14.917. Ah, yes? Well, tho Bill provides, as far 

 aa it possibly can, that the landlord has a claim if 

 he does not. 



14.918. Would you mind telling me what difference 

 you draw between the agricultural yearly tenant and 

 the manufacturing yearly tenant? I am not suffi- 

 ciently intimate with the conditions of manufacturing 

 to answer that at all fully; but I think the bulk of 

 manufacturers own their factory. 



14.919. On the contrary? I do not know that; but, 

 generally speaking, I do not think u manufacturer 

 would lose ao much on having to leave his factory 

 and tako another as a farmer would, or in ]>ro|x>rtion. 



14.920. Suppose you tako the shopkeeper who has 

 the goodwill of his business? I am not speaking for 

 shopkeepers, and I do not profess to understand that 

 sufficiently. 



14.921. I do not want to go into this in too minute 

 detail ; but does it not come back to this, that you 

 Are seeking to attach to a tenancy some attributes of 

 ft freehold? I think not. I do not ..< that it 



14.922. Getting something for nothing? No, cer- 

 tainly not. I have protested most strongly against 

 that the whole of my life. I have said all through 

 that we must have fair treatment of both. 



14.923. Of course, you have told me your official 

 position and we know it. Do you mind pointing out 

 a little in detail bow, seeing that you have been 

 here for 40 years, you have been deprived of tho 

 opportunity or, in fact, have not spent the capital 

 that you would have spent?-- For one thing, for tho 

 whole of that time I do not think I spent 5 a year 

 in artificial*. 



14,'Ji*. \\JLS that because the land was in such a 

 good state ol lerulity as left by your undo, as you 

 nave told us? No; because of the state of fertility 



I got it into. 



H.yi;. Without artificials? Yes. 



M/J&i. But whether you spent the capital or not, 

 us .Mr. Edwards has poiuU-d out, the roault of your 

 fanning has not been unsatisfactory !' 1 do not call 



II \cry satisfactory when for 16 or Id years 1 did not 

 get 3 per cent, for my capital, without reckoning a 

 single farthing for uiy own work or my own out-of- 

 pocket expenses. That is not what a business man 

 would call satisfactory. 



14.927. You are going back to ancient history? 

 No, it is not. 



14.928. Forty years ago? And, in my opinion, what 

 we are going to have again in the next 40 years. 



14.929. I agree with you, and that is what I am try- 

 ing to find a remedy for. To that extent we do 

 agree. But, your average is 1,944 for the last 5 

 years, but that includes your son's services and your 

 own services, and your interest on capital, so that it 

 is not as big as it looks? No, and 1 want to point 

 out that the great part of that is only paper profit 



14.930. I am coming to that. Then again, I find. 

 preceding the war, for 19 years you made an average 

 of 706. Again that allows nothing for your own 

 services, I understand, or for interest on your capital? 

 No, nor for my son, who was with me the whole of 

 that time. He came to me in 1895 or 1896, I forget 

 which. 



14.931. Practically the whole of the 19 years? 

 Yes. , 



14.932. So that with you was the really more skilled 

 experience and he it puts a big hole into it? Yes. 



14.933. It was not a too profitable undertaking nil 

 that time, was it? It was not. 



14.934. But, so far, you have not convinced me that 

 the insecurity of tenure has made the land any leas 

 profitable under your management? I think I could 

 have made it more profitable if I had felt more secure. 

 But I say at once, I, like so many others, feel that 

 we farmed better than we ought to have done. 



14.935. I am not unsympathetic to the tenant 

 fanner remember. My view about tho Land Rales 

 Bill shows that; but I cannot help feeling that this 

 security of tenure is a little of a bug-bear? I do not 

 think it is. because, as I said just now, I considered 

 I did not get fair play when I left the farm. 



14.936. Let us look 'at the next point. When did 

 you leave? I understood you had to leave tho, farm 

 because it was sold, and you left in 1916? Yej. 



1 l.f>.17. When I look at' your profits for 1916. they 

 are 50 per cent, bettor than your biggest pre-war? 

 Y. -. I can explain thnt to a' very creat extent. 



14.938. I think the note you have made show* 

 frankly that you did get out of your farm pretty 

 well? I cannot say that I agree with you there. 

 The great bulk of that profit that year is from the 

 large increase in my valuation of the stock I was 

 keeping. 



14.939. I see what you mean? That is the great 

 thing, and it is only a paper profit. 



14.940. I will deal with the paper profit afterwards ; 

 but do I understand you to say that this large profit 

 of 3.246 for 1916 does not Show a considerable- in- 

 crease in your tenant right, and what I call the 

 tenant's valuation apart from the saleable stock lie 

 had? No, I do not think it does. I may say I do 

 not know tho particulars. Valuers never <;iv<> that, of 

 course; but I was enormously disappointed at tnv 

 tenant right. When I came out that year my tenant 

 right did not come to nearly so much as I paid for it 

 ir. 1878. 



14.941. The same farm? Yes. I paid over 900 

 goinp; in, and I got less than 700 roming out. T 

 could never understand it, and have never done to 

 this day. 



11.942. Neither can I. That is an answer to my 

 question? Of course, I have not my figures here, 

 but I could show them. I paid something over 900 

 for tenant right going in, and, as I say, only got 

 something under 700 on going out. 



14.943. Was that tho Michaelmas valuation? 

 Lady Day. 



