84 THE AGRICULTURAL CLUB. 



with equanimity. On the other side of the account we must 

 admit that there is a strong prejudice in the minds of masses 

 of townsmen against the farmer and the landlord. To them 

 the farmer is an arrant profiteer, the landlord a bloodsucker. 

 As to the landlord, I claim confidently that no other class has 

 suffered anything like the same diminution of income owing to 

 the war. The way they have, in the main, gone steadily on 

 without trying to increase rents, even to cover extra tithe and 

 taxation, let alone to cover the increased cost of all the work 

 they have to pay for on their estates, without thought of actually 

 increasing their incomes, still less with any notion of trying to 

 have the same real income in purchasing power as before 

 the war, without even imagining that the war could bring 

 them profit (as it has to so many other classes), fills me with 

 amazement. Do you know how much of the calculation of 

 2s. $d. as the producers' price for milk represented rent ? Not 

 one townsman in a hundred would believe the answer, which 

 is o'44 of a penny, a tenth of a penny per quart, one per cent, 

 on the retail price. As to the farmers profiteering, farmers in 

 the main have not deliberately profiteered, though they have 

 profited. But let us realise that when excessive claims have 

 been put forward on behalf of farmers, as has unfortunately 

 been done, untold harm is done to the interest of the whole 

 agricultural community. They may get an extra pound a ton 

 for their hay or potatoes now, but it is money dearly won. On 

 balancing up pros and cons, however, I think it reasonable 

 to conclude that the people of this country would listen to 

 proposals to organise the agricultural industry on a better busi- 

 ness basis, even if this organisation involved guaranteeing 

 minimum prices, with patience and without prejudice, and this 

 is something to start with. 



My suggestion then is simply this : If guaranteed prices are 

 to be asked for it should be only on a basis which will keep under 

 cultivation an area necessary to make us self-supporting in 

 an emergency, and will give to all engaged in Agriculture fair 

 profits if they organise their industry in the completest and best 

 way possible. I do not go into questions of areas to-night. On 

 that I accept the teaching of Sir Daniel Hall, confirmed, as 

 it was, by the paper which Mr. Lennard read us a fortnight 

 ago. It is the idea of calculating the prices on the basis of a 

 thoroughly organised Agriculture that I commend to your con- 

 sideration. 



If the urban consumer is to be expected to square up to the 

 policy of permanently subsidising food production, the least 

 he can ask is that all factors due to human backwardness or 

 lack of enterprise shall be entirely eliminated in reckoning the 

 bill which he may be called upon to pay. He will have to learn 



