330 



Speech by Minister of Agriculture. 



[JULY, 



war rations during any future war, and in that respect make 

 ourselves safe against any development of the submarine cam- 

 paign. Personally I shall never be satisfied— I shall never 

 cease striving, whether in or out of office — until that moderate 

 and prudent measure of national insurance and security has 

 been attained. I am sure it can be done, and it is in the power 

 of British farmers to do it. For that reason, and on this 

 occasion, I make the most earnest appeal of which I am capable 

 to them to respond generously. The Government in this Bill 

 has endeavoured to play its part. We now ask the farmers 

 of this country to play theirs. In doing so, not merely would 

 they be doing what I believe is in the interests of themselves, 

 in the interests of their labourers, and in the interest of the 

 whole economic situation — but they will be rendering, as they 

 have rendered more than once in the past, one of the greatest 

 services that can be rendered by Englishmen to their country. 

 (Loud applause.) 



Mr, E. w. LANCFORD, J.P.— (President of the National Farmers' 

 Union), also spoke, and said (in part) : — 



We have waited impatiently for the pronouncement of the 

 Government as regards agriculture. We have the policy in the 

 Bill. It does not go quite so far as some farmers of England 

 expected it would go! It does not offer the panacea for all the 

 difficulties with which we are confronted, and it does not solve 

 all the problems with which we are confronted, but it is an honest 

 endeavour to put into the Bill the pledges given in the Caxton 

 Hall speech by the Premier.* 



The nation is calling at this moment for an increased amount 

 of arable land, and I hope every farmer will respond. If it is 

 to be on a sound and profitable basis, and if it is possible for us 

 to extract such crops and sell them at such price as to ensure 

 a profit, I hope every farmer will do his best to carry out the 

 main principles of the Bill to produce the increased foodstuffs 

 of this country. To enable this to be done there must be 

 absolute confidence in the mind of the farmer. The farmer is 

 prepared when this confidence is given to him to do his level 

 best with the land in this country. 



I believe, if we stand firmly behind the Ministry, the Minister 

 of Agriculture, realising, as he does, the importance of the food 

 production of this country, will stand by the Bill, and it will 

 be our turn when it becomes an Act of Parliament so to support 

 him by increasing the food and land under the plough that the 



* A report of this speech was published in this Journal, Noa ember, 

 1919, p. 772. 



