§ LORD BLEDISLOE rose to ask the Minister of Agriculture whether he will state what are the eight counties in the United Kingdom which grew most wheat during the thirty years preceding the war, and what proportion their wheat output bore to the whole wheat output of the United Kingdom.
§ The noble Lord said: My Lords, in putting to the Minister for Agriculture the Question which appears in my name on the Paper, I desire, at the outset, to make no secret of my hope that the deduction to be drawn from his reply will be that in restarting what I may call the wheat campaign—Which the somewhat serious bread outlook would appear to justify, and which no doubt the new county agricultural committees will be called upon to prosecute—the task will be imposed preponderantly, but not exclusively, upon those parts of the United Kingdom whose climate and soil have shown them to be specially fitted for the production of wheat, in partial exoneration of those counties where the conditions are not so favourable to its production.
§ I have no knowledge of the figures for the United Kingdom, for which I am asking in this Question, but I believe I am correct in saying that about one-sixth of the fifty-two counties in England and Wales, under normal conditions, produce about one-half of the aggregate wheat crop. If that is so, I take it that the figures which the noble Lord will be in a position, no doubt, to give as regards the United Kingdom as a whole, will be much more significant in showing what very few counties produce the bulk of the wheat raised in this country. The noble Lord may wonder why I limit my Question to wheat, and do not extend it to other cereals. I do so because in the case 639 of oats, apart from the very low potential milling extraction, the bulk of this crop is necessarily required for our live stock, and in the case of barley, admittedly more palatable when incorporated in the loaf, the brewers are bound to utilise the best malting samples, especially when sugar is so scarce and expensive. Even with regard to grinding barley, if pigs and other stock go short, baking difficulties are such in respect of barley that probably potatoes, which can be grown in every part of the kingdom, are in times of serious scarcity a sounder proposition in making good a shortage of edible starchy food.
§ Before I sit down may I be allowed to congratulate the noble Lord, both personally and on behalf of the Federation of County Agricultural Executive Committees, of which I am chairman, on the interesting and stimulating announcement which was made in another place yesterday, that farmers would in the year 1921 be permitted to receive for their wheat the c.i.f. price of that imported from abroad. While fully recognising the value—at least while a minimum wage policy exists—of a minimum guarantee against serious financial loss, so long as the shadow of the possible limitation of the maximum open-market price hangs over the industry, the full incentive to maximum production would not have been forthcoming. The announcement will produce, I venture to say, far more wheat than will the Agriculture Bill when it passes into law.
§ Let me add, that the suggestion made last night by a leading member of the other House, that the policy of the noble Lord was a preparation for, and indeed calculated to promote, another war was, in my judgment, the exact reverse of the truth. I have always regarded it as very doubtful if the late war would ever have occurred, had not our enemies been aware of our extreme vulnerability, arising out of our utter lack of self-containedness in the matter of food production. The more we are self-supporting, the more secure we shall be against such an eventuality.
§ THE MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (LORD LEE OF FARE-HAM)My Lords, before I reply to the Question on the Paper I should like to express my acknowledgment of the very kind remarks with which my noble friend 640 concluded his speech. I think, perhaps, this is not the occasion on which I ought to ask your Lordships to listen to any statement of mine with regard to the Agriculture Bill or its objects, and that my duty now is to reply to the Question on the Paper, while not only not dissenting from, but agreeing in the main with, every word that my noble friend has just said. With regard to the Question, the eight counties in the United Kingdom which grew the most wheat during the thirty years preceding the war were Lincoln, Norfolk, Essex, Suffolk, Cambridge, the East Riding of Yorkshire, Hampshire and Sussex. They grew between them an average of 43½6 per cent. of the average production of the United Kingdom. They have always been recognised as being the principal wheat-growing counties, although Kent and Wiltshire are practically equal to Sussex, and therefore, if my noble friend had said ten counties, he would have better covered the point.
§ LORD BLEDISLOEDoes that take into account the Lothians of Scotland?
LORD LEE or FAREHAMI think so. I have already answered the second part of the Question, the proportion being, as I have said, 43½6 per cent. For the rest, I will only say that I do not want to pursue my noble friends argument with regard to whether it is or is not desirable to prosecute wheat-growing in other parts of the country. It is obviously a matter of immense importance, which will have to be fully debated when the Agriculture Bill comes before the House, and I think it right that I should reserve my arguments until then. I will merely say that if my noble friend suggests we should concentrate all our efforts upon these six counties with regard to the future, there is very little room for expansion there.
That they are already growing wheat almost up to the limit is shown by the fact that they have already a total arable area of four and a-half million acres as compared with an area under permanent grass of two millions, and even if the whole of that remaining permanent grass were ploughed up for further production, you could not devote more than one-quarter of it to wheat. Therefore, the total increase would be only half a million acres—obviously not a very large contribution. I can, however, reassure my noble friend by 641 saying that neither the Government nor the reconstituted agricultural committees have any idea of proceeding upon an unwise or drastic ploughing campaign, such as was necessary during the height of the war, when we had to consider not good husbandry but the question of getting food by any means. There is no such suggestion for the future, and the special circumstances of the western counties will receive full weight in any directions that may be given.