M.—AGRICULTURE 213 
which, of course, excludes any advantage derived by the worker owing to 
enhanced wages. Yet another theory, strongly Protectionist in character, 
insists that, in effect, the home producer is not being subsidised at all 
until his rates of benefit exceed those provided for his most favoured 
Imperial competitors ; this basis would give a value of £6 per acre. To 
me it seems plausible to hazard the suggestion that, despite various 
difficulties associated with rates of exchange, the fairest method is to 
attempt to locate the difference between the average of world beet prices 
and of those ruling domestically. I arrive thus at a present-day world 
value of 25s. per ton, compared with gos. for the internal price, which 
gives a difference of 15s., or, with a yield of 9-5 tons, of £7 per acre. This, 
then, is the figure I propose to use in connection with certain tabular 
statements that follow. Incidentally, all the methods enumerated above, 
except the first, give results that correspond closely with the widely 
spread empirical belief that one-third of the gross State expenditure has 
reached the farmer and his employees. 
It is obvious that, in the case of beef, the 5s. per live cwt, or average 
sum of approximately £2 tos. per beast, represents a clear addition to 
the impossibly low prices that would otherwise have been secured ; the 
failure to occur of an anticipated rise in prices led, incorrectly, to the 
claim that middlemen had absorbed these grants. Admittedly, the con- 
sumer is paying more for his milk, and the distributor is enjoying no 
smaller margin, while in this trade the producer can point to a guaranteed 
outlet rather than to substantially enhanced prices as the principal result. 
Sums devoted to afforestation, the provision of small-holdings, and, to 
a certain extent, sugar-beet, have percolated to many grades of cultivators 
—actual or potential—but a small proportion has doubtless remained with 
owners, who find land values improved thereby, while certain ancillary 
trades, e.g. transport and building construction, have been provided with 
augmented outlets. Few of the grants have failed to provide additional 
employment or at least to prevent diminution in the numbers of wage- 
earners. 
When one turns to investigate the truly remarkable reliefs from the 
“burdens —both statutory and non-statutory—which have been imple- 
mented during the last ten or twelve years, one finds tax- rate- and tithe- 
payer all affected. By the Agricultural Rates Act of 1923, which halved 
_ the contribution of agricultural land (already, under the provisions of the 
1896 Act, reduced by fifty per cent.), the Exchequer thereafter handed 
over to the local authorities of Great Britain an annual sum exceeding 
£3,800,000 ; this, of course, was in addition to the £1,320,000 per annum 
falling due under the Act of 1896. In 1925 the derating of agricultural 
buildings necessitated a further contribution, amounting to £700,000 per 
annum. In 1928 the remaining quarter of local taxation falling upon land, 
representing {4,132,000, was remitted. The occupiers of agricultural 
land and buildings in England and Wales alone have, by these means, been 
relieved of payments which would, in recent years, prior to the readjust- 
ment of the Block Grant system, have amounted to about £16,000,000 
per annum, equivalent to an average of 12s. per acre ; rather more than 
half (£9,000,000) of this sum must have come from the pockets of the 
