MORE ARABLE ESSENTIAL ll7 



A. D. Hall, Sir Herbert Matthews, Mr. T. H. Middleton, 

 and other witnesses who have appeared before us. 



56. We think it is of the first importance, if the 

 objects of our Report are to be attained, that the State 

 should secure the breaking up of a large proportion 

 of the land which has been allowed to go down to grass 

 during the last forty years. Each million acres broken 

 up would provide employment for an additional 

 40,000 men * and, of course, the famihes of the men 

 would mean a very much larger increase of the rural 

 population. With the important question of the time 

 within which these measures must be carried out with 

 a view to the ex-Service men we deal later. 



57. We do not contemplate the breaking up of really 

 good pastures or of very poor land only suitable for 

 sheep runs. But we have evidence to show that 

 between these two extremes there is a large acreage of 

 inferior grass which might be ploughed up with advan- 

 tage to the Nation, and also to the cultivator, if the 

 prices of corn are maintained at a reasonable re- 

 munerative level. 



1 We have received various estimates as to the number of addi- 

 tional men who would be found employment in agriculture by the 

 breaking up of pasture, Mr. Hall and other witnesses considered 

 that, after allowing for the use of labour-saving machines, rather 

 more than 20,000 additional men would be employed on a million 

 acres of grass converted to arable. Sir Henry Rew, who, in giving 

 evidence before us, approved of the estimate of three additional 

 men per hundred acres, has stated that probably 60,000 to 80,000 

 men were displaced in 1881-1901 by the laying down of two million 

 acres to grass. Mr. Middleton considered that on the basis of the 

 nvunber of men returned in the 1911 Census as farm workers, the 

 munber actually employed on 1,000 acres of ploughed land was 83 

 as compared with 16 employed on grass. This would indicate that 

 if a million acres of grass were broken up and, on the average, two- 

 thirds of them were annually under the plough, the number o| 

 additional men employed would be 44,500. 



9 



