1922.] 



Council of Agriculture. 



939 



resolution should refer to damage sustained on plantations as 

 well as crops. Sir Merrik Burrell considered that any expense 

 should be borne by the man who was responsible for the 

 nuisance. Mr. Gardner suggested that the onus of clearing 

 out rabbits should be placed upon occupiers and the County 

 Councils given sufficient power to take legal action against 

 offenders and have them fined. 



It was then moved and seconded that the words " and 

 plantations " should be inserted after the word " crops." This 

 was agreed to and the motion v>'as carried. 



Mr. German inquired as to vdiether any payment would be 

 made to small farmers in regard to fractions of acres w^hich 

 had not so far been allowed in the claims made by them in 

 respect of their crops of wheat and oats during the past season. 

 The Minister replied that the matter had been placed before 

 the Law Officers of the Crown, who had advised that it would 

 be illegal to pay on fractions of an acre and that no regulation 

 which he could make could possibly give payment any validity. 

 In the case where a man had several fields and his crops ran 

 out to a fi'action of an acre on each field, then the various 

 fractions would be added together and paid for as acres, but 

 it would be illegal to pay on the ultimate fraction. It w^as a 

 hardship on the small man who grew less than an acre, but he 

 had no other course open to him than to accept the Law Officers' 

 decision. It was purely a legal question and unfortunately 

 had not been raised while the original Act or the repeal A.ct 

 was in passage through the House, or it might have been 

 provided for in advance. The matter could not noY< be remedied 

 by legislation which could not now be passed before Easter 

 next at the earliest, when it would be impossible to check any 

 claims that were sent in. 



Mr. German suggested that the Law Officers had not stated 

 that hedges and ditches should not be pa,id for and that it 

 might be open for the Minister to include an allowance for these 

 and so bring up the fraction to a whole acre. The Minister 

 stated, however, that the legal view was that the area of hedges 

 and ditches should be ' deducted as they form no part of the 

 acreage of the crops. 



Mr. Acland, speaking on the point of the matter not having 

 been raised during the passage of the Bills, said that must have 

 been because it could never have occurred to anybody that frac- 

 tions of acres w^ould not be paid for. It seemed to him to be 

 one of the most amazing legal decisions he had ever heard and 



