HC Deb 19 May 1915 vol 71 cc2424-42
Mr. PROTHERO

The question to which I desire to draw the attention of the House is our food supply. Men cannot fight or work on empty stomachs, and therefore the organisation of our food supply is an important part of our warlike preparations. The price at which bread and meat is to be sold may be a very serious factor in the War. It is obvious that those prices may rise to a height which may weaken the nation's determination to carry this War to that complete victory which alone can justify the sacrifices the nation is making. Although I think that nothing matters to-day except the War, and although talking for talking's sake is at the present moment something akin to a crime, I venture to put before the House certain points about the food supply of this country. I may be met at the outset with the remark that we have got an efficient Board of Agriculture and a competent consultative committee whose advice the Board does not always follow, and what more do you want? The point I want to make is that you do want something more than a Department; you want to organise the food supply on a scale far greater than has yet been contemplated, and the efficiency of that organisation will depend upon the degree in which you get the co-operation, practically, of all the Departments of the State centrally directed. Before I go further I wish to guard against creating any panic as to our existing wheat supply. Quite apart from the stock which there may be in this country at the present moment, there is a visible supply which puts out of mind all risk of shortage. You can see to the bottom of the British farmer's sack, it is true, although I believe at the present moment he has something like 1,200,000 quarters of wheat; but, looking to Argentina, the United States, Canada, India, and possibly Egypt, there is sufficient corn in sight, especially if you remember that within six weeks' time the new American harvest will be on the market. I believe Texas is now cutting its wheat, and in view of supplies from Tunisia and Algeria we may expect the demand of France to slacken. I think I am justified in saying that there is not the slightest ground for panic on the subject of our wheat supply.

Then comes the question as to the existing supplies of wheat and the price at which it is being sold. The Indian wheat is coming to this country under wholly unprecedented circumstances, and yet it is reaching these shores at 67s. and 68s. per quarter. We all know that the Indian Government has absolutely prohibited private export, that the private firms engaged in the wheat trade are now Government agents, and the Indian Government has fixed the maximum price, and that is the price which their buyers are allowed to offer to the up-country seller, less the charges for bringing the wheat to the port of lading. The wheat is then sold at market prices in the United Kingdom and the difference between the official regulated price in India and the market price at which wheat is sold in this country forms part of the revenue of the Government of India. I know there is an opportunity for some conflict of interests between the financial interests of the Indian Government and the interests of the British consumer. I cannot help thinking that if we had had the organisation, for which I ask, arrangements might have been made more favourable to this country. Then there is the question of Egyptian corn, and probably hon. Members will say there is "corn in Egypt." The conditions under which there is a surplus in Egypt are something similar to those in India. I should like to ask the Government whether they are making preparations to ear-mark the whole of that Egyptian surplus, just as we have done in regard to the Indian surplus for the benefit of the consumers of this country. I would remind the House that the most successful wheat "corner" that ever was effected was in Egypt, and what I want to be sure of is, that the Egyptian Government and the British Government together are going to be their own Joseph and do this for the benefit of the British consumer.

With regard to the stock of wheat in this country which the corn merchants have already bought and imported, the stock in hand is unusually small; besides this there is an unusually small quantity of wheat in passage to this country and enterprise in the corn trade is unusually dull. There is one reason for that on which I must touch, although I am going to obey loyally the Prime Minister's request that, it should not be discussed at the present moment. The Government, I know, has bought largely, and how largely nobody knows. They have discontinued buying; I believe, so that the British corn merchants should resume their normal trade. But the quantity is unknown. Now, it is just that unknown quantity that is making the corn trade in this country anxious. British corn merchants are short, and so are the millers and bakers, and they are all living from hand to mouth. The result is partly seen in the rise of bread prices at the present moment. Corn merchants feel that at any moment the quantity of wheat which the British Government has got in its hands is an unknown quantity, and probably exaggerated, and it may be thrown on the market and prices swamped. They are waiting for the situation to clear, and obviously, if they buy too largely for the needs of the country, when prices fall, when the American harvest comes in, they will be heavy losers. I think they are entitled to this information. You cannot expect merchants to meet the future requirements of this country unless they know how far those requirements are already met. My point is that if we had the organisation to which I refer that uncertainty would not complicate the present situation. Representative corn merchants should be told approximately what the quantity is.

7.0 P.M.

So much for the existing supply, and now I will refer to future supplies. What ought to be done is to have an estimate formed, rough and approximate of course, of the total quantity of food required for the human beings and animals in this country. When once you have got that estimate formed then you can set to work to provide the necessary supply. First of all as to the Home supply. Here the labour question still dominates the situation. It is not a mere question as to whether farmers will go to Labour Exchanges or not, for it is a much bigger question than that. There is a shortage of labour, and it is felt severely in many parts of the country; it is already affecting agriculture, and affecting it seriously. It is quite true that the farmers have sown their spring wheat and set their potatoes, but the difficulty is still present, and it is affecting produce at the present moment. Let me give one or two illustrations. A dairy farmer finds that he cannot get labour, consequently he sells his cows and retires from business. The consequence is that there is less milk and higher prices. The agricultural farmer knows that he cannot get labour for hoeing and singling his roots; therefore he hesitates to drill the usual area, and if you reduce the root crops of this country the winter food for sheep is less, and you diminish the number of sheep and consequently you have dearer mutton. As to the harvest, hon. Members must recollect that each harvest, unless the weather is ideally perfect, has to be got in at high pressure, and the heavier part of the work cannot be done either by women or children. If farmers have any doubt about being able to get in their crop of hay and clover, instead of mowing they will graze that land, and the result will be that we shall be short of forage for our horses. Then there is the corn harvest. I can assure hon. Members that fanners are extremely anxious about getting in their corn. The other day the hon. Baronet who represents the Department of Agriculture (Sir H. Verney) gave, unintentionally, a rather false impression that he had tapped a new labour supply in bringing over Irish labourers. Of course, that is not the case at all. Every year the supply of Irish labourers who come to this country in May and stay till November is something like 25,000 men, and they are some of the best workers who ever come to this country. I remember a Fen farmer telling me that these Irish labourers were men who worked harder, prayed harder, and drank harder than any men he had ever met in his life, and in that part of the country, where rich crops are easily laid low by thunderstorms in the summer, those are the men who reap the harvest. Are those men forthcoming in the old quantities, or will their places be supplied? And here, if the Government can come to any arrangement with the War Office as to the release of some of the Territorials who refuse to go for Imperial service, let them announce it now, and I can assure them that it will be a very valuable thing in the agriculture of this country. If the labour question is important now, it is still more important if you are going to try and obtain an increased area of wheat cultivation. Unless the farmer is pretty secure that he is going to get the labour for the necessary agricultural operations, he cannot increase his arable land.

Besides the labour question, I would ask whether we can increase satisfactorily the wheat supply in the coming year. Of course, there is a suggestion that the State should guarantee a minimum price of wheat in the hope of inducing the farmer to plough up more land. That is a suggestion which raises controversial points and it has many objections to it, but I would like only to make two or three remarks from a perfectly practical point of view. It is no use giving that guarantee for one year; you must give it for the four years which corresponds to the usual farming shift. The justification is that if the farmer ploughs up now useful pasture land he knows that he cannot get a crop of wheat next year. He knows that perfectly well, and if two years hence, at the termination of the War, prices fall, as they may very well fall, because the wheat area in grain-exporting countries has been enormously increased, he would be a heavy loser. Therefore, you ought to give him—that is the argument—some inducement to run that risk and make that venture. I do not say whether that would be a good thing for the country or not, but, if you are anxious to get an additional wheat supply for the harvest of 1916, no guarantee that you can possibly give is at all likely materially to increase the quantity, because, as I have said, newly ploughed land will not grow a wheat crop.

The meat question is, I honestly believe, the most serious part of the problem. We do know that the very high feeding-stuff prices produced a very curious economic result. Though the farmer had to pay an enormous price for his feeding-stuff, yet that very high price made and kept meat comparatively cheap, for this reason: The price was so heavy that the farmer sold every available animal that he could sooner than go to the expense of keeping it. The result has been that meat has been cheap in this country. That cannot last. The stock of live animals in this country has been brought, as I believe, to a very dangerous point, and from now onwards the price of feeding-stuff is bound to produce its natural result and send up the price of meat. How are we going to meet it? That is a very important problem. The Board of Agriculture, no doubt, has one side of it in hand. They are probably at this moment considering whether they should not forbid or restrict the slaughter of immature animals during the veal and lamb seasons. They are also probably considering whether they should not prohibit absolutely the slaughter of in-calf cows and heifers, in-pig sows, and ewes of certain breeds of sheep. I hope that they are considering it, and considering it most carefully; and I hope also that they are considering whether the circumstances are not so grave that some risk must be taken and whether Canadian stores should not be admitted into this country and the prohibition relaxed. That is a very important point.

Besides that, there is a point outside the range of the Department of Agriculture. You must try and prevent the feeding stuffs in this country rising to higher prices so as to swell the price of meat. Why are feeding-stuffs so high? There are two reasons. One is the want of labour, and the other is the want of material. I believe that some of the most important feeding-stuff manufacturers in this country, cake manufacturers, can only put out two-thirds of their ordinary output, and, of course, feeding-stuffs therefore are dearer, and, as I say, the influence on the price of meat is direct. One of the things I would ask is that the Government should take the matter in hand, and see whether they cannot supply these feeding-stuff manufacturers with enough labour to increase their output to its normal extent. Then as to material. We ought to prohibit absolutely the export of every sort of fodder and every sort of feeding-stuff from this country, except, of course, for the use of our own Forces abroad. And, further than that, we ought to endeavour to obtain from our colonies an abundant supply of material, and to do it now, and set those cake manufacturers to work in order that when winter comes there may be an adequate supply of feeding-stuff for the cattle and live stock left in this country.

But, do what we will, the farming industry cannot possibly feed the country. Agriculture as we have it to-day is the product of sixty or seventy years of a particular financial policy. It cannot turn round and in one, two, three, or five years become an absolutely self-sufficing country. We cannot do it. It is impossible. Therefore, you must look further afield, and here again is a point I wish to press upon the Government. You must try and organise all the Imperial resources, and you can only do that by inter-Departmental action, and by communicating, for instance, with the Governments of Australasia, Canada, India, and Egypt. You want them all, and you want to get from them the promise that they will earmark for our use, and for our use only, so much of the food supply as your national Estimates show that you want. You must do it not only as to wheat, you must do it as to meat, you must do it also for all that large range of products—all of which we can obtain from some part of our Empire—maize, peas, beans, millet, linseed cotton seeds, palm-nut and cocoanut, which will go to make up all the various sorts of feeding-stuffs. You must, in fact, organise your Imperial resources as well as your Home resources, and, if I may venture to say so, it must be done now and at once. It is because it is such a big question that I venture to call the attention of the House to it to-day. It is a big question which wants big handling, and I am sure that nobody would be more pleased than myself to be told that every one of the suggestions that I have made to-day have been carried out by the Government. Nobody would be better pleased, and I am sure that the country would be enormously relieved to know that the Government has taken this question in hand with a full sense of its magnitude, or, if they have not, to have a promise from them that they will take it in hand with a full sense of its serious gravity, of its urgency, and of its vital importance to our means of prosecuting this War.

The House has listened to me so patiently that I would venture on one appeal which comes from the utmost sincere conviction and from some experience of an industry to which the best years of my life have been devoted. We have an honest co-operation in all parts of the House, and coalition is in the air. Therefore, I may put my point without fear of provoking any contentious question. There are two policies as to agriculture before the country at this moment. One is the old policy of private enterprise, and the expenditure of private capital in the least remunerative but safest of British securities. The other is the large expenditure of public money, and that indicates public control. Those two remedies are self-destructive. You cannot have both in the field at once, and I should wonder if hon. Members opposite or Members in any part of the House, are aware of the degree to which the confidence and the enterprise of the farming industry have been weakened and impaired by the policy of the present day. There is not one landlord in a thousand, there is not one farmer in a thousand, who dares spend his private capital on the land with any generosity. We agriculturists are at one with hon. Members opposite over nearly the whole range of changes which they wish to bring about in the farming industry. We are just as anxious as any other hon. Member can be to see wages raised, to see the agricultural population properly housed, and to see production increased to its fullest possible extent.

But though we agree in our aims, we differ as to the remedy, and what I would ask the Government is not to change their policy—I do not ask that—but to suspend that policy, entailing as it does a large expenditure of public money. You cannot at the present day take public money round in water tanks, you have to measure it out with teaspoons, and, in these circumstances, if you cannot carry out the policy to which hon. Members opposite are pledged, leave us for ten years or thereabouts to work out our own salvation in our own way on other lines. If the Government will adopt that suggestion, if they will guarantee that we shall be left alone for a certain period of years, and that before the new policy is adopted we shall have an opportunity of stating our case, we shall not feel that we are judged, condemned, and legislated for on partial evidence, and I believe they will be richly rewarded. The industry would take up the question of food supplies with passionate good-will, and you would find the productiveness of the country increase, your arable area enlarged, your wages raised, and the problem of housing agricultural labourers practically solved. It is on these grounds that I venture to urge on the Government to take up this great question of organising our food supplies, and to take it up as a serious, vital, important and urgent question.

Mr. PENNEFATHER

I entirely concur with what has been said by my hon. Friend who has, in fact, stated much that I had intended to say, and he has said it so much better than I could have done, that I am extremely glad that he has relieved me of that part of my duty to-night. There is, however, another aspect of the question to which I would call the attention of the Government and of the House. I do not propose to deal with the question of the prices of food, because there is an old adage which says, that you ought first to catch your hare before you discuss how it is to be cooked. Proceeding on these lines, I want to discuss first how we are to obtain adequate reserves of food in this country, before we discuss the question of the prices at which it is to be sold. This question of a reserve of food in this country is to my mind most important and most serious, but it is very difficult to discuss it without taking into account another question, how long is this War going to continue? If it is going to be a short war, it may be that the necessity to build up any great reserve of food in this country does not exist, any more than the necessity to build up great reserves of ammunition, but if it is going to be a long war, then the question of a reserve of food assumes very important proportions. I am not in a position to make any suggestion whatever as to the length of the War, but I would like to remind the House of some words which fell from the Prime Minister yesterday, in answer to the hon. Member for the Bridgeton Division of Glasgow. The question was whether the Government had considered the possibility of the War lasting for more than three years, and the Prime Minister replied that the Government could not neglect the possibility of a long continued struggle.

If that is the case, I submit the Government cannot neglect the possibility of interruptions—possibly merely temporary interruptions, but at all events occasional interruptions of our oversea food supplies, due to the action of an enemy's forces, either under the sea, in the shape of submarines, or over the sea in the shape of airships. I do not suggest, for a moment, that this country is in danger of being starved out; that I believe to be impossible, but if we had occasional temporary interruptions, such as I suggest, of our oversea food supplies, it is perfectly obvious that we might have from time to time considerable rises in the prices of food in this country, due to a temporary scarcity. It is not for me to enter into the question to-night of what are the reserves of food in this country. If, however, anybody will take the trouble to read the report of the Royal Commission on Food Supplies in Time of War, which was published in 1905, they will see there set out in detail how our food supply comes to us from oversea in regular instalments. As long as those instalments continue to come in regularly and without interruption, we manage to live from hand to mouth; but I think every hon. Member of this House who is conversant with the subject is aware that, as a matter of fact, we do not in this country at any time carry any large reserves of food-stuffs.

I have referred to the Report of the Royal Commission on Food Supplies, and I would like to point out that the calculations arrived at by that Commission are vitiated by the fact that, at the time those calculations were arrived at, nobody in the world had any idea of the developments which would take place within ten years in the construction and use of submarines and aircraft; therefore, in the absence of that knowledge, the conclusions arrived at in that Report are to-day to a great extent useless. We must all admit that it is possible—I do not put it higher—that we might have very heavy losses occasionally in the shape of ships bringing food to this country, and if that were so, if we had no reserves of food in this country, it would put us in an awkward position, and inflict great suffering on the poorer classes. I do not think that this has been fully realised. We have all been misled, to a certain extent, by calculations which have been made and which have appeared in the Press. We have been told that if a certain number of vessels are sunk they only represent a certain percentage of our total mercantile marine. These percentages look so very small when the matter is worked out in that way that they convey to the ordinary mind an idea that the losses are negligible. The percentages are really not correct, because we have not to consider the percentage of loss as compared to our total mercantile marine, for the total mercantile marine is not available for food-carrying to this country. A great part is at present being used by the Admiralty, and if this War goes on, if it is protracted to any extent, we must rather expect more than less of our mercantile marine to be engaged in that way. Then, again, a large percentage of our mercantile marine is engaged, not in bringing food-stuffs or other things to this country, but in performing carrying services between various foreign countries. Putting percentages aside, the fact remains, as a simple arithmetical calculation, that if the enemy sank a certain number of our vessels per week, that number when added up may represent a serious total at the end of the year. If, for example, the enemy submarines, aeroplanes, and raiders—if there are any raiders—only capture or sink one vessel a day, that would be a very poor bag for the largely increased number of submarines which we are told are shortly to be put into commission by the enemy, yet one ship per day represents 365 at the end of the year, and if we are to view the possibility of this War lasting two or three years or more it obviously means a great danger in not having in this country adequate food reserves to meet such emergencies and to keep down prices during times of temporary interruption.

I do not want to be an alarmist. I do not feel in the least pessimistic, but, as the Prime Minister has admitted, it is the duty of the Government to have in view the possibility of a protracted struggle. I do not for a moment believe that the people of this country are inclined to fall into a panic on this or any other subject. As a nation we are not prone to panic; if we have a fault, it is in the other direction; we are apt to be a little too apathetic. But with the knowledge that we now have we certainly ought to provide some means of storing, in this country, sufficient food reserves. At the present moment I believe there is no possible way of storing any large supply of food here beyond the normal supply, because at every port the warehouses are congested. I would ask the Government most respectfully to take into careful consideration this question as to what they are going to do if it suddenly becomes apparent that they must keep larger reserves of food in this country. Where are they going to put it? Of course they cannot do the impossible, but I do suggest that this is a matter on which, with advantage, they might look ahead and endeavour to make some provision, in case the time comes when it is necessary to built up a food reserve.

I need not touch on the question of agriculture, so ably dealt with by my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford University (Mr. Prothero). I am myself a practical farmer, farming over 300 acres of land, and I am perfectly conversant with all the difficulties he has mentioned. The problem how to increase our home production of food is a very difficult one. Briefly stated it amounts to this: In order to do it you will have to increase the number of acres of arable land—land under the plough—and if you do that you will obviously reduce your acreage of grass land, and consequently we should have to apply fresh methods to increase largely the output of hay and cattle from the reduced acreage of grass. If that is true, and it is true—and is accentuated by the lack of labour—then I submit that it is all the more imperative that we should have a reserve of food. The more it is impossible to increase our Home production of food, the more are we dependent on our oversea food supply, and that being so, the more necessary it is to take the precautions which I have suggested in regard to providing storage.

There is the other point of economy. If we are going to try to build up large reserves of food, it is obvious that we would be greatly assisted in doing so if we could induce the nation to be more economical and less wasteful in regard to the food we have in our possession, or which we may produce. In that connection the suggestion made by my hon. Friend (Mr. Prothero) with regard to immature animals is well worth consideration. We have just passed a Bill to prohibit the consumption of immature spirits. Why should we not carry something on the same lines into effect in regard to immature animals? The Government might also refuse to issue any licenses for the export of food from this country until we had built up a reserve of food sufficiently large to make us feel absolutely easy in our minds. All these things of course mean organisation, and organisation takes time and money, but it is the experience of all of us that organisation is, on the whole, less costly than improvisation. We know that to improvise things in a hurry is always an expensive way. I suggest to the Government that they should not hesitate to make every man do his duty in regard to the production, importation, and conservation of food; to do his best not only in regard to military matters, but in regard to producing and conserving food. I agree with my hon. Friend also that that would be best done if the Government would do in this direction what they have done so excellently in other directions, namely, take into their confidence and consult those business and agricultural interests involved in the production, importation, and storage of food, and act on the lines of conciliation and co-operation. I must apologise for having occupied so much time, but the matter is such an important one that I thought we might well devote a little time to it before we adjourn.

Mr. JAMES HOPE

I desire to raise only one point, but it is a point of considerable importance, and it fits in entirely with the arguments addressed to the House on the question of food supplies. The point is that of the shipping reserves which we have, but which are not immediately available. The point was brought home very much to my mind by a remark made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer the other night. The question had been raised as to the number of shipwrights engaged in building new ships for the mercantile marine, and it had been suggested that these men should not be allowed to continue that work, that contracts should be allowed to be broken, and that their labour should be devoted entirely to Admiralty building. The Chancellor of the Exchequer then said that it was of great importance that the shipbuilding for the mercantile marine should not cease, because we had had very considerable losses and might expect more in the ordinary course of hostilities. The right hon. Gentleman ignored the immense number of ships that we have, which are not available for doing trade to and from the United Kingdom, but which are engaged solely in trade between foreign ports. How many of these ships are there? I recollect I asked a supplementary question of the Prime Minister in which I remarked that the well-known authority, Mr. Bruce Ismay, had stated that for every one hundred ships doing trade to and from the United Kingdom, there were forty British ships doing trade to and from foreign ports alone. I have just received a letter from Mr. Ismay, in consequence of the report of that question, and he informs me that I was mistaken, but mistaken in a direction which strengthens my point. First of all, the statement was not made on his authority, but was made on the authority of the War Risks Committee who supplied the Report upon which the whole business basis of our war risks insurance is founded. Mr. Ismay informs me that it was stated by them in their Report. What I recollected as having been stated by him as his own estimate was really the estimate of the War Risks Committee. I was further mistaken in supposing that for every one hundred ships doing trade to and from the ports of the United Kingdom there were forty doing foreign trade. The case was much stronger, because the estimate was that for every sixty ships doing trade to and from the United Kingdom there were forty British ships doing trade between foreign ports only.

In the light of that statement, I am rather surprised that the Board of Trade said that no estimate was possible, when this very authoritative Committee had given this estimate only last year. I thought two-sevenths of our mercantile marine were doing foreign trade only, but according to these figures it is two-fifths. How many would that be? I have no special means of information, and cannot go into questions of tonnage. I do not know whether any figures would be available as to the tonnage of these different ships, but I have no reason to suppose that the tonnage of those doing foreign trade only is less than that of those doing Home trade. If anything, the presumption is the other way. I can only deal with the number of ships. According to Lloyd's Register, the number of ships in the Mercantile Marine is 9,240. Allowing for those ships which have been sunk, and in order to get round figures for the purposes of argument, let us call it 9,000. If the War Risks Committee were right in their estimate, there would be 3,600, that is, two-fifths of 9,000, doing trade between foreign ports alone. Those are ships owned in the United Kingdom; I exclude Colonial vessels altogether. I suppose that a certain number of those ships which might be doing foreign trade have been taken over by the Admiralty, not only in Home waters; that is to say, that of the ships in Home waters and abroad a certain number has been taken by the Admiralty which might otherwise have been doing this trade. After allowing every deduction, if these figures are right and the War Risks Committee are right, there must be 3,000 British-owned vessels, not Colonial-owned, which are doing trade between foreign ports.

I turn from that to the shipbuilding statistics and find that there are from 500 to 700 vessels turned out for the Mercantile Marine in a year. Therefore when the Chancellor of the Exchequer spoke of the importance of continuing this output it is surely far more important to get this large number of ships available for trade to and from the United Kingdom. The strange thing is that the Government have no power in this matter. I asked the President of the Board of Trade the other day a question on the point and he said neither the Admiralty nor the Board of Trade have any powers whatever. If the question of the food supplies, which depends so largely upon shipping, is a serious one, the Government ought at once to consider the question from the point of view of taking powers to make these ships, or some of them, available. I know there are enormous difficulties in regard to time charters and the great circulation of trade and exchange throughout the world. How far the Government should act, I will not say, but that they should take some power in this matter is very obvious. If this authoritative body is right, if two-fifths of the mercantile marine are plying their trade in a way that directly has no influence on our food supplies at all, and if, when new time charters have been entered into and new contracts made, the Government have no power to lay their hands on this great national asset and resource, I submit that a very serious situation has arisen. Before the Government resume—whatever Government it be—upon Thursday, 3rd June, I hope that the officials of the Board of Trade will very seriously consider this question and see whether some immediate legislation that will give them the power to make this great national asset available should not at once be taken in hand.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. J. M. Robertson)

I particularly regret that my right hon. Friend the President, who, I had hoped, would deal with these matters, has been called away on urgent business and is unable to do so. The House will agree with me that in the circumstances the very gravity of the suggestions that have been made by hon. Members opposite precludes the possibility of my giving anything in the nature of an undertaking or even entering upon an argument. I can only promise hon. Members that every consideration they have submitted will be very carefully noted. The hon. Member for Central Sheffield (Mr. James Hope) has raised again the important question, which he raised by question in the House the other day, as to the possible utilisation for national purposes of ships under the British flag trading between foreign ports. He naturally does not expect me to add anything at this moment to the answer then given. I rather suspect some statistical confusion in the figures he has given, but I can promise him that by the time the House resumes we shall have gone into the statistical question as fully as may be and be in a position to give him what one calls a considered answer upon the question of policy.

Mr. J. HOPE

I quoted these statistics because they were the best I could find. My case does not rest upon the matter of balanced figures, because there is a considerable number of these vessels.

Mr. ROBERTSON

I admit that the case does not stand or fall upon the figures the hon. Member gave. With regard to the contention of the hon. Member for the Kirkdale Division of Liverpool (Mr. Pennefather), I agree with him that the Government ought not to neglect risks to our food supplies. The hon. Member for Oxford University (Mr. Prothero) pointed out that there is no cause for panic, and there the hon. Member for the Kirkdale Division agrees. The food supplies in sight are quite sufficient to obviate anything in the nature of extreme anxiety. Still, there remains legitimate ground for the position of the hon. Member for the Kirkdale Division when he says that the question of the food supplies becomes more serious the longer the War goes on. I can, without hesitation, assure him that the matter has been under serious consideration all along. I cannot be expected to say anything further on that head.

Mr. PENNEFATHER

Will the Government consider the question of storage?

Mr. ROBERTSON

Wheat storage is a very old and difficult problem, and every time it has been approached from a practical point of view it has been found to be beset by enormous practical difficulties. Perhaps at a later time we may have occasion to discuss these in the House. The problem of storage in regard to wheat is one of the most difficult of all, but it is not being ignored. The hon. Member (Mr. Prothero) made an interesting and suggestive speech in virtue of his wide range of knowledge of agricultural matters. Many of his propositions I considered really sagacious, but in so far as he asks for assent to his demand for what he called the organisation of all Departments centrally controlled, he will forgive me for not making a reply. I may give my meed of praise to his survey of the subject as a whole, but he will not, of course, expect me to be in agreement with all even of his more practical propositions. I do not think his suggestion of an understanding throughout the Empire for the earmarking of all forms of Colonial food supplies for this country is quite so convincing as some of the other suggestions in his speech, but I do not want to discourage the practicality of his proposal. I merely say it is quite beyond the scope of the present discussion to expect the Government to commit themselves on the subject. As regards his closing suggestions, which, if I understood them, were to the effect that we might usefully try a policy of ten years of tariffs on food imports—

Mr. PROTHERO

No, my only request to the Government would be to let agriculturists alone as regards legislation. Let them work out their own salvation. It was nothing to do with tariffs. I never suggested it.

Mr. ROBERTSON

The hon. Member's suggestion of a new land policy is again one which I cannot discuss. I can only suggest, in view of the present circumstances, that there is every prospect that all such demands as he makes will receive no less attention in the immediate future than they have received in the past.

Amendment made: Leave out "Tuesday the 8th," and insert instead thereof "Thursday the 3rd."—[Mr. Walter Rea.]

Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.

Resolved, "That this House, at its rising this day, do adjourn until Thursday, the 3rd June."

The remaining Orders were read and postponed till Thursday, 3rd June.

Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of the 3rd February, proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn."

Question put, and agreed to.

Adjourned at Twelve minutes before Eight o'clock till Thursday, 3rd June, pursuant to the Resolution of the House of this day.