328 



Speech by Minister of Agriculture. 



[JULY, 



in arable farming. (Hear, hear.) There is, of course, resistance 

 — positive resistance in some quarters — to any ploughing 

 of grass land at all. I was sorry to see the other day that my 

 friend. Lord Bledisloe, who is well known to all of you, com- 

 pletely misunderstood what our intention was with regard 

 to this matter, and thought that under some clause of the Bill 

 we were proposing to " destroy the fine green swards " 

 throughout the west of England. Certainly nothing could 

 be further from our intention. But we make no secret of the 

 fact that we hope for, and expect, a large increase of wheat 

 growing as a result of the provisions which we are making in 

 this Bill. I believe we shall get it, and when we meet with the 

 objection of people who say : " This grass land contains 

 stored-up fertility ; it would be unfair to the owner of the land 

 if that stored-up fertility were used for the purposes of the 

 tenant," I have to say : " How long is it going to be stored up ? 

 How long is the talent to be wrapped in a napkin and kept 

 in the ground ? " If ever there was a time in the history of 

 our country, now is the time for this fertility to be put into 

 circulation. (Hear, hear.) We make ample provision in 

 the Bill for full compensation to any landlord whose stored-up 

 fertility is appropriated by a tenant, and who, perhaps, is leaving 

 his holding. But we see no reason why the compensation 

 should be more than the full loss actually suffered, and that is 

 the meaning of Clause i6. At the other end of the scale we 

 have got to consider thcmeans of preventing an undue amount 

 of seeding of arable land down to grass. Let me say at once 

 that I recognise it is desirable that some land which was 

 ploughed up during the War under the stress of the submarine 

 campaign, and which proved to be unsuitable for corn growing, 

 should be seeded down to grass. But in such cases we must 

 insist that it should be done properly, and we must fight 

 against a timid, retrograde, and unpatriotic policy of simply 

 seeding down in order to avoid some of the difficulties — 

 passing difficulties as I hope they are — with regard to labour 

 and other matters. 



Arable Farmings and Improvement of Pastures. — Make no mistake 

 about it, if a campaign of reducing our arable cultivation 

 succeeded to any extent, if there was any general seeding down 

 of arable land to grass, you would have in this country a 

 counter-agitation for the nationalisation of the land — for taking 

 away the land altogether from those who were doing this 

 and for breaking it up and distributing it amongst smaller 

 holders. I do not know whether vou wish to see that, but 



