88 THE AGRICULTURAL CLUB. 



would then induce more food to be produced than could be pro- 

 duced at world-prices and would simply be magnets attracting 

 labour and capital to channels less productive than those in 

 which they might otherwise be employed. Such prices would 

 involve a departure from sound principles of national business 

 which could only be justified, if justified at all, on other than 

 economic grounds. But guaranteed prices corresponding to 

 probable world-prices are another matter. Whether they 

 would be beneficial or harmful is a question on which opinions 

 will differ. On the one hand, it may be argued that the Govern- 

 ment knows more about the probable future of world-prices 

 than any individual farmer, and that therefore it may well give 

 him the benefit of its superior knowledge in the form of an 

 insurance. On the other hand, it is possible to argue that 

 guaranteed prices will probably be determined not by the wisdom 

 of the Board of Agriculture but by the folly of Members of 

 Parliament, and that though farmers have less knowledge than 

 the Board of Agriculture, they have more knowledge than the 

 politicians. Again, it may be urged that guaranteed prices 

 would give the farmer a special privilege as compared with men 

 in other forms of business, that the policy of coddling Agriculture 

 and allowing it such privileges as low rents, low wages, and an 

 exceptional position in regard to income tax has been tried in 

 the past, and that Agriculture thus coddled has languished, 

 while manufacture, which has been exposed to the fiercest 

 struggle for the survival of the fittest, has thriven and grown 

 strong. Why, it may be asked, should the agriculturist be 

 insured by the Government free of charge, when the cotton- 

 spinner, if he is insured at all, insures himself by the ordinary 

 method of paying a premium to an insurance company ? The 

 question may be left to be settled on its merits. But the question 

 of guaranteed prices leads to another point which may conveni- 

 ently be dealt with at this stage, before the economic aspects 

 of agricultural policy are left for the consideration of the social 

 and naval or military side of the problem. It is sometimes 

 said that if you have minimum wages for farm labourers you 

 ought to have guaranteed prices for the farmers. It is true 

 that this was not the policy of the Government when the Corn 

 Production Act was passed, and that the suggested connection 

 between minimum wages and guaranteed prices was expressly 

 disavowed by the Minister in charge of the Bill. It is true too 

 that in other industries where there is a minimum wage the 

 employers have no guaranteed prices to help them. None the 

 less the argument mentioned above is often advanced ; and 

 it cannot be too strongly urged that the minimum wage and the 

 guaranteed price, so far from being complementary, are from 

 the point of view of national economy liable to be in flat contra- 



