64 



ROYAL COMMISSION ON AGRICULTURE. 



21 Oclobtr, 1919.] 



MB. E. M N< .SKLRY. 



[Continued. 



happened, through an outside circmn.-t.ime, to coma 

 into possession of a little money, ami 1 m\ e*t< d tlru 

 money in taking more land. 



16.293. If there is a general tendency to put more 

 land down, to grass how will that affect milk produc- 

 tion P It will not affect it at all in my particular 

 case, because I do not go in fur milk production. 



15,383. Is not the natural result of putting land 

 down to grass to increase milk production? I think 

 not, at any rate not in my case, because without that 

 I should hare had sufficient grass. 



15.294. I am not speaking of yourself alone, but the 

 general view? I do not think it would, because if 

 you plough it up it leaves you with less grass, but 

 more straw and more roots. 



15.295. Instead of turning a field into wheat you 

 turn it into grass. Will that not have the effect of 

 increasing milk production? It all depends on the 

 eircuiiistamvs. If roll hare not sufficient grass to 

 Ueep your stock in* the summer, turning it down to 

 grass would enable you to keep rather more, but, on 



ther hand, with ploughed land it enables you 

 to keep more in the winter. But in the case of this 

 particular land it would not affect it at all really, 

 because you cannot grow roots on it. 



15.296. Ther. you do not think the increase in 

 grazing would affect the production of milk? Very 

 slightly, if at all, especially with that class of land. 



15.297. How far is your farm from the nearest 

 town? The buildings are four miles from Welling- 

 Lorough and five from Kettering; the top land would 

 be a little more. 



15.298. You hold with the principle that if you 

 could get satisfaction in rating, and if the foreigner 

 were charged as much as you for railway rates, you 

 would be content to go back to the old position rather 

 than want a guarantee? With other things put on 

 : fair footing I think I should prefer it. 



15.299. That is the view which was given to us by 

 one of the members of the National Farmers' Union 

 (Scotland)? I did not know that. 



15.300. Mr. Cautley says he has queered the pitch ? 

 I have not seen the evidence given by other wit- 

 nesses at all, and, as I say, I am not speaking for 

 the Farmers' Union to-day. 



15.301. Mr. Green: I want you to turn to your 

 profit and loss account for the years 1878 and 1918, 

 inclusive. You make a statement in tho footnote to 

 Statement " D " : " It will be seen that I have divided 

 the 41 rears into three periods 1878 to 1894, 17 years 

 of falling prices, when I only made 3 per cent, intere-t 

 on capital ; 1895 to 1913, 19 years of very slowly rising 

 prices, when I made 10 per cent, interest on capital ; 

 and 1914 to 1918, five War years of quite abnormal 

 prices and conditions, when I made nearly 20 per 

 cent, interest on capital"? Yes. 



15.302. I venture to suggest to you that your facts 

 are not correct. For instance, if you take the aver- 

 age price of wheat in the first period, 1878 to 1894, 

 you will find the average price was 35s. 9d. You say 

 from 1895 to 1913 were 19 years of very slowly rising 

 prices. As a matter of fact they were not. Tho 

 average price from 1895 to 1913 comes to 29s. 7d. So 

 it amounts to this : if the figures I have given you 

 are correct and I think you will find them correct 

 if you refer to the figures of the Board of Agricul- 

 ture which I have in front of me that in those 19 

 years of lower prices for wheat you were making a 

 much higher. average of profit than when the pi 

 were higher? Excuse me, I never said anything 

 about what was the average price for those two 

 periods. I said the first period was a period of fall- 

 ing prices. The price of wheat in 1878, speaking 

 I'rom recolle<-tion, was somewhere about 45s. to 60s., 

 and it had been at that figure for Mime 

 During the next few years it fell from that to as low 

 19s. a quarter in 1894. That is what I sold wheat 

 at, I think, in 1894. From 1895 to 1913 it rose again 

 until it got up to .'<. or 34s. When I said the first 

 period was a period of falling prices. 1 ine-uit <,n tin- 

 whole; I did not refer only to wheat, but to other 

 thing* M well. 



16.303. I put it to you that in the other period, from 

 to ll'l.f, prices fell still more rapidly? I do not 



agree with you at all. 



15.304. You only have to refer to the Board 

 rjeultiirv figures to prove it? I say that in 



1894 it went down as low as 19s., but it rose again 

 from 19s. until, about 1913, it got up to 32s. or 33s. 



15.305. The average was higher in the first period 

 than in the second ; the prices in the second period 

 were much lower than in the first period? I was not 

 speaking of the average for the first period; I said 

 the price^ weie falling during that period, which I 

 thinU is rather a different thing. 



15.306. Yon have implied already to this Commis- 

 .-niii that you could make a better profit when wheat 

 was over 40s. than you could when it was under 30s. 

 Take the six successive years 1878 to 1883. I find 

 from your own statement of your profit and loss 

 account that you made an average annual profit for 

 those six years of 101. I think you will find 

 figures are correct. Take your next period. Take 

 six successive years of mucli lower prices under 30s. 

 a quarter. You will find from 1899 to 1904, in spite 

 of the price being under 30s. a quarter, you made an 

 average annual profit of 490? Cannot you under- 

 stand that? 



15.307. Does not that strike you as rather remark- 

 able considering your former statement:- Oh, dear, 

 no, not in the least. I should have thought you 

 would have understood that. I took the Farm' in 

 1878 at the rent of 36s. an acre. My rent was redm ed 

 subsequently, and in 1804 I was paying 16s. an ai-ie 

 for that land, besides which I had cut down my 

 other expenses. I was not employing nearly so much 

 labour ; I laid a lot of the land 'down to grass. My 

 costs of production were cut down, and it was not on 

 wheat alone that I got that profit, hut by an altera- 

 tion in my system of farming. Practically 1 did then 

 what Mr. Donaldson, in his statement the other day, 

 said we should have to do in the future. I went in 

 for more of what we may call the ranching style of 

 farmer laying down tho poorest kind of land to 

 grass, and cultivating it all ns cheap as possible. 

 You must remember, too, the last six years you took 

 I *M farming a larger quantity of land than I as 

 in the first six years period. 1 got a larger profit, 

 but it was from double the quantity of land, and 

 farmed more on the ranching system. 



1">..'W8. I do not know whether you remember the 

 years before 1878? I began farming in 1868, but 

 1878 was the time I moved from the smaller to the 

 larger farm. 



15.309. You will admit that wages were lower in 

 1868 than they were in the period of depression in the 

 'nineties? I believe the lowest wages I ever paid, 11s. 



t \\.ck, was about the year 1885, and lowering the 

 wages from 12s. to 11s. cost me a good many pounds 

 since. 



15.310. In the 'sixties, at any rate, you were paying 

 about 9s. or 10s. for labour? No, 11s. was the lowest 

 I ever paid, and I paid that in 1885 or 1886. 



1.").311. I understood you to say that you thought 

 the abolition of the Wages Board would mean that 

 wages would go down? No, I do not think I said 

 that. I said that if we had not bad the V. 

 Board I believed that wages would still have risen 

 to about what they are to-day, but I do not think 

 the hours would have been altered so much. 



15,312. As regards laying down land to grass, how 

 do you stand with reference to Part 4 of the Corn 

 Production Act. which contains the cx>mpulsory 

 powers:- Would they have power to insist upon your 

 ploughing up that Mod again?- I do not think so. 

 I happen to lie Chairman of the Committee which puts 

 the Act in force. 



l.">..'(i:t. From your general knowledge of farming in 

 this country, with regard to the figures which have 

 boon given us by the Board of Agriculture as to the 

 land which has been laid down to grass this year, do 

 you not think that those figures might be discounted 

 largely by the fact that a good deal of that land 

 ought never to have been ploughed at all for wheat 

 production? There was a good deal of land ploughed 

 that. I think would have been better not, but I would 

 not say even now, under the conditions of two or 



