MINUTES OF EVIDENCE. 



61 



21 October, 1919.] 



MH. E. M. NUNNELEY. 



Continued. 



15,130. Mr. Thomas Henderson: Referring to Mr. 

 Langford's questions on the Hours of Employment 

 Bill, you said you had not read the Bill:' 1 have 

 not. I have seen extracts, and, I suppose, the princi- 

 pal clause, but I have not seen the exceptions. 



15,181. You are not aware that there is a con- 

 siderable amount of elasticity with regard to the 

 working of overtime:' No, but I understand that 

 practically each time you want a man to work over- 

 time you have to get special permission, but as I say 

 I have not seen the Bill. 



15,132. There is a clause providing for the working 

 of overtime in cases of emergency:' Yes, I under- 

 stood there was such a clause, but I object very 

 strongly to what I may call being obliged to have 

 overtime regularly in the carrying on of our business. 



15,IS3. You cannot blame the workers because of 

 what is in the Bill:" No, I have guarded myself 

 already in that respect. 



15.184. In the first draft of the Bill the agricul- 

 tural industry was included? YB. 



15.185. So that evidently the reasons for exclud- 

 ing the industry from the second draft were not con- 

 sidered to be very strong ones at the time of the first 

 draft:' I do not know anything about that, but I 

 consider agriculture so entirely different from other 

 industries that I do not think it should be put upon 

 the same level as industries in general in that 

 respect. 



15.186. At any rate our legislators thought it ought 

 to be included to begin with!' Yes, those who drew 

 up the Bill ; I do not know who they were. 



15.187. You said in reply to Mr. Lennard that you 

 were in favour of a 9 hours working day? 9 hour* 

 actual work, which really would mean the old 10 

 hours working day allowing for meal times. We 

 have put up with the 9 hours lately, and I think we 

 should try to carry on with that; that is to say, 

 the same* as last year a 54 hour week in the summer 

 and 48 in the winter. I should not personally have 

 tried to upset that arrangement if it had been left 

 alone. 



15.188. Assuming your wishes had been carried into 

 effect, that woukl involve the abolition of the Satur- 

 day half holiday? No, it would not, and it never 

 has done. I have had a short day on Saturday for 

 the last 20 years. 



15.189. If you have a 9 hours' day, a 54 hour week, 

 I cannot see where your half holiday, or short time 

 Saturday is to come in? We have worked 9J hours 

 for five days and taken it off on the sixth. 



15.190. At what time do they get off on the Satur- 

 day? I believe it is 1 o'clock either 1 or 2. I am 

 not on the farm myself now ; I leave it all to my 

 son ; but all the summer they have been working 

 9^ hours for five days, and that leaves 6J for the 

 Saturday. That would be 7 to 1 and half an hour 

 for lunch I think it would be half past 1 before 

 they leave off on Saturday. 



15.191. You said you had not paid Income Tax 

 before last year? That is so, or not so much. 



15.192. Is that not rather a surprising statement 

 of yours, having regard to your profits in 1914, 1915, 

 and 1916? Not at all. Farmers have always had 

 the right to pay on their rent until recently, and 

 dividing my rent between myself and my son, we have 

 never become liable to much Income Tax. 



15.193. I see, you divide the rent between the two 

 of you? Yes. I may say I have boon for many 

 years a Commissioner of Income Tax, and also that 

 I did not have the pleasure of paying much Income 

 Tax until last year. 



15.194. I congratulate you on your good fortune? 

 Of course, when I say that I have never tried in 

 the least to escape from the payment unfairly. I 

 have always laid the whole thing before the Sur- 

 veyor of Taxes and proved that I was not liable. 



15.195. There is some confusion, is there not, with 

 regard to your cost of production estimate? You 

 give us the costs of production for your 8 years' 

 rotation ? Yes. 



15.196. That, I take it, is the cost in the year 

 ending C'hrUtmas, 1918? It is the estimated cost in 

 any year it ia what I consider the average cost. 



15.197. Ovt-r the 8 years of your rotation? Yes; 

 I have always contended that it ia impossible to 



separate one crop from another and say what is the 

 cot of one particular crop. 



15.198. Take your wages. Are these wages the 

 average wages over the 8 years' period? No, they 

 were the wages we were paying at Christmas, 1918. 



15.199. Are you estimating the cost of labour over 

 this 8 years' rotation on the basis of those wages? 

 On the wages in force ,at the time I took this out. 



15.200. How does that give you the true picture 

 of your cost over the 8 years? I did not say they 

 were the actual expenses. I said they were what 1 

 calculated would be the expense with wages at that 

 rate and the hours as they were then. 



15.201. You give the total produce for 8 years, 

 and you deduct the 8 years' cost as if those were the 

 actual costs for the 8 years? Yes. 



15.202. Whereas these are simply the costs esti- 

 mated on the wages and hours' rate at Christmas, 

 1918? Yes. 



15.203. The actual costs, therefore, would be much 

 less? -Yes, before that period, no doubt. 



15.204. So that the figure you give is not the 

 correct figure it may be higher or it may be lower? 

 It may be so; I cannot say. It is my calculation 

 of what would be the cost based on the wages and 

 hours which were then in force. 



15.205. I quite understand that, but your figure 

 of the annual average cost over the 8 years is a 

 mere estimate? Yes. 



15.206. And bears no relation to the cost in the 

 previous 7' years? That is so. 



15.207. It is only an estimate? Only an estimate. 



15.208. So that if you were to put in the accurate 

 figures for the previous 7 years you might get 

 an accurate result? Yes, but I oould not divide the 

 cost up between the different crops. I never meant 

 it to be an actual cost ; it is an estimate. 



15; 209. With regard to the question asked you by 

 Mr. Ashby in reference to your profit for the year 

 1918 of 1,797, you said you did not divide your 

 profit between the arable side of your farming and 

 the stock rearing side? No. 



15.210. In reply to several Commissioners you have 

 told us you are going to put certain fields down to 



. grass because you are more hopeful as regards your 

 stock prospects than your arable prospects? Yes. 



15.211. How can you tell that if you do not 

 divide your costs and your profit up between your 

 different crops? I do not say that exactly; what 1 

 say is I cannot see with the present costs as they 

 are how it can be otherwise. 



15.212. So that you are throwing your land down 

 to grass simply under an impression and without any 

 actual knowledge? Taking my profit and loss account 

 years ago it showed that as soon as we came below 

 40s. a quarter at that time and certainly when it 

 got as low as 30s., with wages as they were then at 

 2s. 2d. or 2s. 3d. a day, I began to lose money. I 

 may tell you that I got very much found fault with 

 in the county, because at a meeting, I think it 

 \vas in the year 1882, of the Chamber of Agricul- 

 ture, I said that wheat under the conditions then 

 prevailing could be grown at about 32s. to 33s. a 

 quarter I do not say at very much profit, but that 

 1 thought we could do it. I say I was found fault 

 with for that statement, yet 7 or 9 years afterwards 

 many of those same farmers were saying they would 

 be very glad if they could get 32s. a quarter and 

 that they could grow it for that amount then, but 

 with wages as they are now and with hours as they 

 are paymg 6s. Id. for an 8 hour day, I do not 

 see how wheat could possibly be grown to show a 

 profit. 



15.213. You have not in reality worked out the 

 division of profit between these two systems of farm- 

 ing? No. 



15.214. So that you are really putting certain of 

 your land down to grass on the strength of an 

 impression ? Yes. 



15.215. Which may be right or may be wrong? 

 With the experience I have had I have not much 

 doubt about it being right. 



15.216. You have not had experience of the 

 future? No. As I have said, if we could have such 

 a price as would induce us to go on with it wo would 

 go on with it, but I do not think it is practically 

 possible. 



