STABILITY OF PRICES 109 



43. Moreover, if a minimum wage were introduced 

 in the farming industry without corresponding measures 

 to ensure the abiUty of the industry to stand the 

 increased cost of labour, there would be a danger that 

 farmers would meet it by laying down still more land 

 to grass and so dispensing with still more labourers ; 

 for though the State may enforce payment of a minimum 

 wage it cannot force farmers to employ any more men 

 than they choose. And, in addition to such a per- 

 manent reduction of the number of men employed on 

 the land, farmers would be tempted to keep a smaller 

 permanent staff of men employed all the year round ; 

 supplementing it by temporary labour in the busy 

 seasons. This risk, incidental to any minimum-wage 

 system, can only be met by an agricultural policy which 

 ensures stability to the industry, and instils a real sense 

 of security into the mind of the farmer. And we 

 regard this risk as a grave one. A weekly wage at not 

 less than a given rate is of little good to a family if the 

 wage-earner is from time to time off work altogetjier. 



44. To understand the farmers' position it must be 

 remembered that during the years of the great depres- 

 sion agriculture was left by the State to save itself as 

 best it could, and the changes which farmers were then 

 forced to introduce as an alternative to going under 

 have brought about a position in which the methods of 

 agriculture preferred by many, and perhaps most, 

 farmers to-day are not identical with the interests of 

 the Nation. 



If we are, therefore, to achieve the purposes of this 

 inquiry, we must first of all reconcile the interests of 

 the farmers and the State ; we must reaHse that just 



