2s8 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



The Corn Production Act is remembered with mingled feelings. One 

 solitary vestige of it remains in operation, the section requiring the 

 destruction of certain specified weeds. As these are weeds which, if 

 unchecked, may spread far and wide, there need be little sympathy with 

 the delinquent who permits them to grow, to the detriment of his fellow- 

 farmers. 



Under the Milk and Dairies Acts, the dairy farmer, in the interests of 

 public health, has to conform to certain standards of cleanliness, accom- 

 modation, equipment, etc. 



Certain restrictions, not very onerous, are laid on farmers by such Acts 

 as the Animal Ansesthetics Act, the Dangerous Drugs Act, the law relat- 

 ing to Heather Burning in Scotland, the Slaughter of Animals Act, and 

 some others which may occur to you. 



Whether the State presses more or less heavily' on agriculture than on 

 other businesses, e.g. shipping, mining, manufacture, shops, railways, 

 etc., I am not in a position to estimate ; but later in this paper I shall 

 venture on the opinion that the farmer is perhaps fortunate in that the 

 hand of the law does not hold him in a tighter grasp than it does at present. 



I come now to my second category of State intervention : that in which 

 the State does not at first hand compel or prohibit, but gives farmers the 

 opportunity to organise themselves for certain purposes and, should the 

 necessary majority of producers decide to avail themselves of the oppor- 

 tunity, empowers them to secure conformity by the minority and to im- 

 pose penalties on recalcitrant or erring individuals. The Agricultural 

 Marketing Acts are the only laws that come strictly within this definition, 

 although the Agricultural Produce (Grading and Marking) Act is similar 

 in that the adoption of the National Mark under it is permissive, but when 

 it is adopted it conveys a statutory guarantee of quality, with penalties for 

 mis-use. As you know, the Marketing Acts are a recent institution in this 

 country. Hitherto, agricultural co-operation for the marketing of agricul- 

 tural products had been on an entirely voluntary basis, with the advantages 

 and disadvantages inherent in such a system : on the one hand, complete 

 freedom of the individual, and on the other the danger that the desires of a 

 majority might in practice be frustrated by a minority who, for various 

 reasons — personal gain, short-sightedness, secretiveness, love of individual 

 independence — were unwilling to observe the rules and limitations neces- 

 sary to secure successful collective action. But under the Marketing Acts, 

 co-operation can be fortified with some very effective artillery. Funda- 

 mentally, however, the principle is still voluntary and the system demo- 

 cratic. Unless the required majority of the producers of a certain 

 commodity vote in favour of the marketing scheme submitted to them at 

 a poll, the Government has no power to impose a scheme upon them. In 

 Scotland, for example, two raspberry marketing schemes have been 

 rejected at the poll, and there the matter ended. And should a scheme be 

 adopted and approved by Parliament, it is administered by a Board elected 

 by the registered producers themselves. 



The need for improved marketing methods in this country is widely, 

 if not universally, admitted ; the economic dangers and disadvantages 

 to the farmers of the indiscriminate sale of their goods in haphazard 



