1921.] Agricultural Machinery after the War. 



375 



The Report on Agricultural luiplements and Machinery 

 (Cd. 1315 ) which has been prepared by a Committee acting under 

 Agricultural ^^^^ Profiteering Acts, 1919 and 19-20, is of 

 Machinery After ^^^"^ considerable interest to agriculturists, 

 the War -l^^armers may be relieved to hear that 

 despite the high prices which they have 

 been asked to pay in recent years there is no evidence of profiteer- 

 ing, and certain of the figures quoted by the Committee will l)ring 

 conviction to the most sceptical. The figures relating to churns 

 can be put into an easily intelligible table : — 



Average Average Average Average Projits. 



Year. List Price. Selling Price. Total Costs. Per cent. 



X. H. (1. £ s. d. £ s. d. s, d. uf costs. 



1914... 4 11 4 ... 3 2 ... 2 8 6 ... 13 6 ... 21.77 

 1919... 8 17 G ... 7 2 3 ... 5 17 2 ... 25 1 ... 17.(33 

 1920... 9 2 4 ... 7 4 8 ... 7 4 3 ... 5 ... 0.27 

 The Committee find that dealers are not acting other than 

 fairly in their position of connecting link between manufacturer 

 and farmer : their commissions do not seem unduly high. 



A great deal of the report confirms the conclusions of the 

 Departmental Committee on Agricultural Machinery,* particu- 

 larly in regard to manufacture and export trade, although some 

 of the statements of the more recent Committee are not made 

 with the qualifications which the former Committee considered 

 necessary. " The conservatism of the farmer," they say, " is 

 proverbial, and manufacturers have had to contend with much 

 inertia and prejudice in bringing their appliances to the notice of 

 the farming public. Generations of farmers have looked with 

 some degree of suspicion, often with undisguised hostility, upon 

 any innovation, and this has been especially the case with the 

 substitution of mechanically propelled implements in the place 

 of horse-drawn machines. It has only been after much hesitation 

 that the average farmer has allowed himself to be persuaded of 

 the efficacy of new patterns and the labour-saving which their 

 adoption would entail." This reads rather like the manufac- 

 turers' case : there is another side to the story, part of which 

 the Report discloses. 



The Committee found that in spite of a general consensus of 

 opinion as to the desirability of standardisation, nothing definite 

 had been done by manufacturers, and they refer to the notorious 

 case of British plough types. ** Such advantages as are derived 

 from the present policy of manufacturing large varieties of types 

 appear to be counterbalanced by the enormous economies to be 



* Cmd. 506. Cf. Journal, April, 1920. 



