AN AGRICULTURAL PARTY 409 



pledges, as this is no longer the Bill to which they pledged them- 

 selves ? 



But we will assume still more, that the Bill comes from Com- 

 mittee without more amendment than these members can recon- 

 cile with their pledges ; it then depends upon the entirely irre- 

 sponsible decision of the Government of the day whether the Bill 

 shall " be given facilities " to proceed further. These members 

 (under our assumption) are only units of one or other of the 

 existing parties, and cannot, therefore, be expected to take any 

 steps in the direction of " putting pressure " upon their leaders 

 in order to obtain these " facilities." So our hope depends upon 

 a string of chances first, upon finding a number of candidates 

 ready to pledge themselves to all the details of a Bill ; secondly, 

 upon those candidates getting into Parliament ; thirdly, upon 

 the luck of the ballot ; fourthly, upon the chance of the Bill 

 passing without amendment through Committee ; and, fifthly, 

 upon the decision of the Government as to whether it shall live 

 or die. 



But we have not yet referred to w^hat must be considered the 

 greatest assumption of all (one fact which our opponents tell us 

 is against us beyond question), and that is the labourers' vote. 

 If it is true that the labourers will always vote against the farmer 

 and landlord, then goodbye to any hope of returning those - 

 candidates who pledge themselves to one or more agricultural 

 Bills, be they ever so well considered. Luckily, it is not true ; 

 but this comes more correctly under the head of " Impractic- 

 ability," and must be deferred until later. I will only add on this 

 point that I think the drafting of Bills is most necessary if taken 

 in conjunction with other steps ; and it is the best way of bringing 

 any question forward in a concrete form. 



I now turn to the second argument. It may be only a matter 

 of opinion, but it is a very general opinion that this desire on 

 the part of so-called Agricultural Members is more imaginary 

 than real, and has proved most insufficient in the past ; and it 

 must be said that if this burning desire does exist among these 

 members they have very thoroughly concealed it. Had they 

 shown it there would have been no such proposals as are now 

 made. It is said that the reason why members have not been so 

 active in the required direction as they might have been is because 

 agriculturists themselves are not organised in a way to express 

 their opinions. This is true to an extent, but for many years 

 there has been an organisation (in the Chambers of Agriculture) 

 which has been able to voice the needs of that industry. We will 

 examine such facts as are available to discover how this desire 

 to serve agriculture has been exhibited ; we shall see at the 

 same time the use that members have made of the organisation 

 that was at their disposal. 



Paragraph 7 of the report dated 23rd April, 1908, was quoted 

 here. (Page 346.) 



