326 Speech by Minister of Agriculture. [july, 



what Lord Hampden said just now, not only with regard 

 to agriculture but with regard to everything else in our national 

 life. I also much dislike control. We have had a great deal 

 of it during the War, necessarily, and we should all be glad 

 in theory to get rid of it. (Hear, hear.) But when it comes 

 to actual practice I do not always find that I get the same 

 agreement. When I first went to the Ministry of Agriculture 

 I tried very hard, as some of 3^ou know, to get rid of the control 

 of home-grown meat, and I got a great deal of assistance 

 in that direction from some farmers, but an even greater volume 

 of opposition from other farmers. They said : " No, let us 

 keep the control. W e know where we are and we are not sure 

 that we should get as good profits if it were taken off." It 

 is not by any means always the case that farmers who call 

 out loudly for the removal of control really want you to do it 

 when it comes to some particular commodity in which they 

 are interested. Let me take this as an illustration. If you 

 had control taken off fertilisers to-day and we were not con- 

 trolling the export of fertilisers so that they could not get a 

 world market, the price of your sulphate would jump from 

 £23 to £50 per ton. That is what the foreigner is wilHng to 

 pay for it to-day. It is only by Government control, keeping 

 the fertilisers in this country, that you are getting them at 

 little more than one-half the average world price. So control 

 sometimes has its merits ! Let me say this with regard to 

 the control of cultivation. The good farmer has absolutely 

 nothing to fear from the measures of control which are contained 

 in this Bill. There is no suggestion there, or possibility, 

 of an}' great compulsory scheme of ploughing grass lands 

 such as we had to engage in during the height of the submarine 

 campaign. May I say with regard to that that I am the sinner 

 who did it, and I will tell you why. I was in charge of the 

 Food Production Department then and my instructions 

 were perfectly plain. They were to produce more food, at 

 any cost, in order that we should not run the risk of starvation 

 and disaster in case the submarines succeeded in cutting us 

 off. That was no time to consider " good husbandry " or 

 to consider whether to plough this field or that field might do 

 injury to a particular man. We did not pretend it was good 

 husbandry ; but we are not going to take that line now. We 

 are in times of peace, thank goodness, and good husbandry 

 is the thing we wish to consider before everything else. The 

 powers we are taking in the Bill are those which are absolutely 

 necessary in order to deal with bad farming. I venture to 



