214 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 
taxpayer, the bulk of the remainder being charged upon non-agricultural 
ratepayers. It may be recorded that this relief represents some £40 per 
“average ’ holding, or {50 per occupier per annum. Similar remissions 
and reliefs have been accorded in Ireland where, in the case of the Free 
State, it has been calculated that payments from farmers have been 
reduced by {2,000,000 per annum; in Scotland £800,000 has been re- 
mitted to landlords and £150,000 to tenants. 
Even taking into consideration the recent slight fall in the poundage 
of local rates, it is true to say that, in the aggregate, reliefs from rating 
must, in Great Britain, represent some {15,000,000 per annum. What- 
ever theory may postulate, or particular interests suggest, there is now 
no evidence, any more than was the case on previous occasions, that, as 
rates were remitted agricultural rents rose, so the full concessions have 
been enjoyed by their intended beneficiaries. 
Rightly classified as a ‘ productive industry’ under the general de- 
rating scheme, agriculture secured yet a further concession, assessed at 
£800,000 per annum, in the shape of preferential rates for rail transport 
applicable to certain types of produce. 
Finally, in approaching the vexed and even hazardous topic of tithe, 
all interests will perhaps allow me to state that, by the legislation of 1918 
and 1925, landowners have been relieved of payments which, had this 
charge been permitted to pursue the course dictated by the then existing 
legislation, would up to date have involved them in an additional contribu- 
tion of £11,000,000. As the whole subject is, as it were sub judice, I will 
only throw out the suggestion that, had some form of sliding scale, in- 
dicative of variations in the purchasing power of money, been retained in 
the last Act, the difficulties experienced by both owners and payers might 
have been much reduced. The ‘ pegging’ of tithe has, of course, relieved 
only those farmers falling within the category of owner-occupiers. 
Having now enumerated the principal ad hoc payments and remissions 
secured by British agriculture, and attempted to indicate their ultimate 
distribution as well as their cost to the nation, it is only reasonable that I 
should refer to certain factors, State-dictated, that figure upon the other 
side of the rural balance-sheet. The first of these was the re-establish- 
ment of the statutory Wages Boards, which, by raising rates of remunera- 
tion above the level existing prior to 1924 (under the voluntary system of 
Conciliation Committees) to the extent of slightly over 6s. per week, 
have caused an addition of {10,250,000 to the annual cost of labour in 
England and Wales (itself representing one-third of all outgoings) which 
in turn is equivalent to some 8s. per acre over-all and may, in the arable 
districts, easily exceed 12s. per acre. Real wages, due to a steady fall 
in the cost of living, synchronously advanced. Secondly, our, as it proved 
to be, premature return to the Gold Standard in 1925, by raising the value 
of the sovereign some 5 per cent., also, for a period, militated to the extent 
of another ros. per acre against the farmers’ returns ; it is fair, however, 
to point out that in its incidence it was not peculiar to the industry under 
discussion. 
Ignoring for the moment any consideration of the financial advantages 
derived from import duties or from the avowedly price-raising quantitative 
