962 



Editorial Notes, 



[JAN., 



basis for legislation that will guarantee a minimum return 

 for the farmers' cereal crops. The Milk and Dairies Act 

 passed in 1915 will come into operation within twelve months 

 after the formal termination of the War. A Seeds and Weeds 

 Bill is now before the House of Commons and will, it is hoped, 

 become law by harvest time. Finally, as stated in the 

 following note, the old Board of Agriculture have succeeded 

 to the status of a First Class Department and will be known 

 in future as the Ministry of Agriculture, with wider powers and 

 larger provisions for theii exercise. Whatever the diffi- 

 culties before agriculturists to-day — and nobody would en- 

 deavour to minimise them — it is clear that the year behind 

 us has accomplished much towards the clearing of the outlook 

 and that the year before us promises to do still more. 



The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries Bill, which was 

 originally called the Agriculture (Councils) Bill," has passed 

 into law. In brief, the Act substitutes 

 The Ministry of g. Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries 



atd^Fish^riL ^""^ ^""^^"^ Agriculture and Fisheries, 

 sets up Councils of Agriculture for England 

 and Wales and an Agricultural Advisory 

 Committee for both countries, defines their powers, duties and 

 constitution, and amends the Board of Agriculture and 

 Fisheries Acts from 1889-190 9. The Act also establishes 

 Agricultural Committees on which executive powers can be 

 conferred in the counties of England and Wales, to which 

 Committees the duties of the County Councils appertaining to 

 agriculture will stand referred. These important new bodies 

 have been designed to give expression to the agricultural 

 interests of the two countries ; they afford a complete 

 answer to any suggestion that the Act will tend to create 

 a central bureaucracy in London. The County Committees 

 will be appointed partly by the County Councils and partly 

 by the Ministry; the Advisory Councils will be represent- 

 ative of the County Committees and in part nominated 

 by the Ministry. To outward seeming the Act is one of 

 purely local and personal significance, but, seen with a larger 

 vision, it becomes part of the great agricultural development 

 that the Government propose to bring about. The old Board 

 had less than sufficient status for the work they are asked to 

 undertake, which is nothing less than the care of what the 

 Prime Minister has called our greatest national industry.'* 



