56 



ROYAL COMMISSION ON AGRICULTURE. 



21 October, 1919.] 



MR. E. M. NUNNBLEY. 



[Contiiiunl. 



16.038. Mr. Ashby has suggested to you that you 

 had made your profits out of corn. 1 do not like 

 to differ from him, hut 1 roiiMilcr th.it your account* 

 show that your profits on live stock have boon the 

 mainstay of your IIIIMIIC-S- I certainly think BO. 

 That was my idea. I really eoul'l not" follow Mr. 

 Ashby in what be said in that way. 1 cannot agree 

 with him at all. I think my live stock has been my 

 mainstay. 



15.039. For a great number of years? Yes, taking 

 IHI average, sometimes one year would be different 

 from another ; but the whole of those years, from 1895 

 to 1913, I certainly did rely more upon the livestock 

 than upon the corn. 



15.040. And from what you have suggested, thnt 

 looks as if even iti the future you will depend on 

 livestock ? Yes, I think so. 



15.041. Mr. Anker Simmons: When you talk about 

 your method of farming in 1894, hare you any idea 

 what the drop in the alteration of the methods per 

 acre in your labour bill was? No. You say 1894, 

 but I had begun it gradually before then. In 1894 I 

 more than doubled my acreage. I think you will find 

 I hardly increase my labour bill at all. I have not 

 looked at that; but I believe you will find my labour 

 bill for 900 acres after 1894 was hardly heavier than 

 it was for 400 acres previously, certainly from 1878 to 

 say 1884 or 1885. 



15,04lA. Looking at the matter from practical ex- 

 perience that you have had in a very long business 

 career, would you not say that bad time, such as we 

 experienced in the eighties and nineties, would be 

 felt to a harsher degree by the labourers than by any 

 other class connected with agriculture? No, I 

 should say they would be felt less by the labourer 

 than the others. 



15.042. From the point of view of employment? 

 Yes; I mean this way, that my rent and my own 

 profits went down very much more than my labour 

 bill did. I continued to pay my men just about the 

 same in 1884, 1885, and so on, as I was doing in 1878 

 and 1879. 



15.043. But you were only employing half the num- 

 ber of men per acre? Yes, in that way; but I 

 thought you meant the individual labourer. 



15.044. No, I was speaking as a class, taking the 

 landlord, the tenant, and the labourer. Wuld not 

 you say that in such times as we experienced then the 

 burden would fall more harshly upon the labouring 

 clasi as a class than upon any other class connected 

 with agriculture? Yes, in that way. I think there 

 would be far less labourers employed. 



15.045. Dr. Douglai: I want to get from you 

 exactly what it is that you think necessary in orde'- 

 to remove the sense of insecurity on the part of 

 tenants of farms. Do you propose a scheme by which 

 a tenant will have an absolute right to remain on his 

 farm, subject to cultivation? No, I have always been 

 against that. 



15.046. You know that that is proposed? I know 

 t has been talked about. I have always said that 



the owner has a right to resume possession of his 

 land if he needs it, even for his own private pur- 

 poses; but if he does so, and by doing so inflicts hard- 

 ship, or pecuniary loss, upon his tenant, he ought 

 fully and fairly to compensate the tenant for that 

 lots. 



16.047. Then you do not propost that rents shall 

 be fixed by at Arbitration Court? My proposal, 

 which nan practically been embodied in the amend- 

 ment* to Uio Agricultural Holdings Act now pro- 

 pOMd by the Farmers' Union, is that they should be 

 left entirely free to themselves ; but that if they fail 

 tu agree, that is to say, if the landlord says, "I 

 think my land is worth more money," and the tenant 

 *yi, " I do not think it is, and I will not give it," 

 or if, on the other hand, the tenant demands a re- 

 duction in the rent and the landlord will not give it, 

 and they wish to come to terms, then they can each 

 appeal to some outside authority to settle it, whose 

 decision will be binding. 



15.048. But your proposal is not that the tenancy 

 hall continue on the basis of an arbitrated rent and 



the tenant shall remain as long as he chooses? No; 

 but 1 should say, if the landlord or the tenant refused 

 tc pay or receive the rent fixed by arbitration, and 

 the tenant wan turned out in consequence, the land 

 lord would have to pay him, if the landlord would 

 not accept the rent fixed. I have never at all ad- 

 vocafo-d fixity of tenure. 



15.049. Just talce the point of rent by arbitration 

 for a moment. What would be the basis on which 

 rent would be fixed:- What conditions would deter- 

 mine a Court or Arbiter in deciding the rent:' The 

 current prices of what he considered the laud was 

 worth at the time, and the circumstances. 



15.050. That is to say, it would bo simply by com- 

 parison with the free bargains arrived at in the 

 neighbourhood? Yes. 



15.051. What is it that you propose by way of com- 

 pensation? Your proposal is compensation to the 

 tenant for being disturbed in his tenancy? Yes. 



15.052. That is to say, your view is that he has a 

 larger interest in it than the mere year for which he 

 holds it? Yes. 



15.053. What is it that you propose by way of com- 

 pensation? The way we have worded it in the pro- 

 posal we put forward was, that it should be not loss 

 than one year's rent, not more than four unless the 

 valuer or arbitrator saw special reasons for going 

 beyond those limits, and stated those reasons in 

 writing; but, as a rule, it would not be less than one 

 year, or not more than throe or four. I am not 

 quite sure which it is. 



15.054. And it would be subject to arbitration, 

 like the other matters dealt with in the Act? Yts. 

 Our proposal was for a Land Court, or Land Author- 

 ity, to be set up, but 1 ani not at all pledged to any 

 particular way. It must be settled in some way by 

 arbitration, or by some authority. 



15.055. Then, in your opinion, can the matter be 

 dealt with by amendment to the existing Agricultural 

 Holdings Act? Yes, I think so. It would need 

 rather extensive amendment, but I think it can be 

 done by amendment. 



15.056. Can you for the information of the Com- 

 mission put in the Bill or Proposal to which you 

 refer? Has the. Bill, been introduced into Parlia- 

 ment? No, we have laid it before the Agricultural 

 Committee, and also before Lord Lee. 



15.057. Can you put it in for the information of 

 the Commission? I have not it with me, and I do 

 not know whether I ought to do so. It is the amend- 

 ment now adopted by the Farmers' Union. I have no 

 doubt they would be willing to put it in, but I have 

 hardly authority to do it, although I am Chairman 

 of the Committee. 



15.058. We can get it? I have no doubt you can. 



15.059. You said you would wixh that farmers 

 should be left alone altogether in their business and 

 go back, I think you said, to the conditions of 1883? 

 I think I hardly said I wished that, although I am 

 not so sure I should not go so far, but that it must 

 be one thing either that, or the Government must 

 guarantee. 



15.060. Do you consider that that, in actual fact, 

 is a possible thing to happen ? -No, ' I hardly think it 

 is. 



15.061. You recognise it is not the minimum wages 

 that is determining your present wage. The wage is 

 above the minimum? Yts, the wage is above the 

 minimum. They are not much above the minimum 

 fixed by the Wages Board. 



15.062. Is it not generally the case that wages are 

 above the minimum fixed?- Very slightly in our 

 part. 



16.063. Do you think they nro ever likely to go 

 below that point? Do you mean as they are now 

 fixed by the Wages BoaVd? 



15.064. Yes?- I think they would in a few years 

 time if there is no Wages Board. I think there, will 

 be so much unemployment, that men will l>o glnd to 

 take work at considerably less if they are free to do 

 KO. 



IVIMM. Anyway, you think your cost of produc- 

 tion would be reduced? Yes. 



15,066. Do you think that wages aro likely to fall 

 back to the level at which they were before the war? 

 I do not. 



