916 



to express your opinions, free to arrange your own business and 

 procedure, and in no way subject to my control. That does not 

 preclude the closest possible co-operation between you and the 

 Ministry and certainly anything that the Ministry can do to assist 

 you in your deliberations will be most willingly done. 



Xov>-, ladies and gentlemen, there is one point to which I feel 

 bound to allude. Up till now the Ministry has not had the 

 assistance of any advisory body, or any body representing the 

 new organisations of agriculture throughout the country; but 

 there has been in existence one body which has performed a 

 most useful function, if I may venture to say so, up to now, and 

 that is the Federation of Agricultural Executive Committees. 

 That was, it is true, an unoE.cial body, but it did represent in 

 sense a Council of Agriculture so far as it was possible to form 

 one at that time. We have now an official statutory Council 

 representing the County Agricultural Committees throughout the 

 country, with delegates from every one of them, and I am frankly 

 a little anxious as to what might happen if there were a division 

 of authority between the Federation of Agricultural Executive 

 Committees and this Council. It seems to me, if I may say so, 

 that it wdll be very difficult for both bodies to exist at the same 

 time, giving possibly contrary advice to the Ministry upon ques- 

 tions of policy. I have no power or desire to influence the deci- 

 sions of an independent body like the Federation of Agricultm-al 

 Executive Committees, though, of course, the Agricultural Exe- 

 cutive Committees no longer exist, and I cannot help feeling that 

 it would be perhaps wiser, and more calculated to produce a 

 united voice in agriculture in the future, if the Federation of 

 Agricultural Executive Committees allowed itself to be merged 

 in this representative and statutory Council, so that agriculture 

 on all future matters of policy should speak with one repre- 

 sentative voice. 



You are aware that under the terms of the Act this Council 

 elects, or at least very largely elects, the Agricultural x\dvisory 

 Committee which is to be a body constantly at the elbow of the 

 Minister " to advise him with respect to all matters and ques- 

 tions submitted to them in relation to the exercise by the Ministry 

 of any of its powers or duties with regard to agriculture, and 

 with liberty to make recommendations to the Ministry with 

 regard to other matters affecting agriculture or rural industries." 

 That Committee, which is the Cabinet of your Parliament, is a 

 bodv of the very first importance. As I see the future, you will 

 have a Minister of Agriculture supported, on the one hand, by 



