HC Deb 08 March 1917 vol 91 cc674-84

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a number of Land Forces, not exceeding 5,000,000, all ranks, be maintained for the Service of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland at Home and Abroad, excluding His Majesty's Indian Possessions, during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1918."

Sir J. SPEAR

I rise to make one more appeal to the Government to abstain from taking more men from food production. Even yet I am not sure that the Government realises the crisis that is assailing our native food supply. As it is, provided no more men are taken, it will be extremely difficult for us to maintain the normal food supply, but I am confident that if more men are taken we shall not be able to produce that increased food supply which is so essential at the present moment. I recognise, of course, the difficulty of arranging between the two competing matters of food supply and providing men for the Army; but I am confident that while it is important to have men to support the forces, it is equally important to have men at home to provide food for those who are called up, and I am sure that, unless the Government ceases to take away so many men from the land, we shall have a continuation of the present high prices of food, if not an increase. We have just been hearing how heavily the high prices of food are pressing on the poorer members of the community. We all regret it, and on that ground and not merely in the interests of farmers, but in the interests of consumers and of the nation, it is most important that our food supply should be increased. The position of the crops at present is a peculiar one. The excessive wet of last autumn and the long-continued frost have made cultivation sadly in arrear, and therefore it will take a very extra effort on the part of the occupiers of the soil to get the crops in in a reasonable time. Double work will have to be done, and if more men are taken away the object will be menaced still more, if not defeated. One thing agriculturists want is to know how they stand with reference to the labour question. Uncertainty is hindering the full development of the soil. Some months since there was a consultation and an arrangement made between the War Office and the Board of Agriculture which was designated the Bath Agreement. Long since we passed away from that, and at present we have one-third fewer men on the land as a whole than was arranged for by the Bath Agreement. I recognise that the War Office, in proposing to liberate 30,000 men to help on the land for some time, are showing that they are anxious to do something to meet the crisis, but while that is of considerable value, and we farmers appreciate it, these men are really wanted to make up the deficiency that already exists in the staff for crop production, and should be made no excuse why men who are still on the land should be taken away. I believe that the War Office intend to abstain from calling up any more B and C men who are at present engaged. That will be a valuable contribution. Notwithstanding, I would tell the Government that we are understaffed at the present time, and any further reduction of the staff must result in seriously menacing the food supply of the country.

9.0 p.m.

I appeal to the Under-Secretary for War to see if he cannot do something to remove the friction that exists between the local tribunals and the military representatives. I know the difficulty is considerable. I have recently put before the Under-Secretary four or five cases which occurred in my immediate neighbourhood in which the local tribunal, after great care, gave exemptions until the 1st July. Appeals were made by the military against these exemptions to an Appeal Tribunal in a town twenty miles away. That tribunal could not be so conversant with the circumstances as the local tribunal. Yet the period of exemption was very much reduced. That causes great irritation. It also causes uncertainty amongst the men when they are harassed by these constant appeals. I am not blaming the military representatives. No doubt they are acting according to their instructions; but I do suggest to the Under-Secretary that the time has come when the War Office should give instructions to the military representatives to show more regard to the decisions of local tribunals than has been the case up to the present. I think, on the whole, the local tribunals have shown great discrimination, and have performed their responsible and very unpleasant duties with every desire to do justice, and it is very irritating to those bodies to have their deliberations overruled when they believe that the decisions they give are absolutely indispensable in the interests of the production of food. On this point may I make a suggestion? Tribunals and military representatives are apt to make mistakes, and farmers would be gratified very much if they were provided with a right of appeal to the Board of Agriculture from these decisions. Farmers have great faith in the President of the Board of Agriculture, who is the head of our great industry and is charged with the duty of increased food production, and who, surely, ought to be the best judge of the amount of labour necessary for him to fulfil his duty to the nation and to procure an increase of food. I suggest to the Government that it would do a great deal to restore confidence among agriculturists if, when there is disagreement between the military and the local tribunals, there was a right of appeal to the President of the Board of Agriculture.

We are told that we must utilise substitutes. I quite agree that it is a responsibility placed upon us to do the best we can with substitutes, and with women in certain light classes of work, but it is absolutely necessary that we should have skilled men to lead and instruct the substitutes and the women. Many substitutes coming from town have no knowledge of agriculture. Agriculture is a far more scientific industry than some people are inclined to think. Therefore, while we will do the best we can with the substitutes, it is absolutely necessary that the men who are now threatened to be called up should be allowed to remain on the farms in order to lead and instruct the substitutes. We put before the Under-Secretary four cases of farmers occupying between 140 and 250 acres, and in these cases, if the men who have now had notices calling them up are called up, except on one of these farms, where there is an old man half-blind, there will not be any man except the master himself. It is impossible that we can go on to do our duty in the production of food in that way. I recognise the responsibility of agriculture. At last Parliament is going to enable agriculturists to come into their own and to have recognition and just dealing from Parliament. That places upon us a great responsibility to use that increased opportunity in the interests of the commonwealth, and I have no doubt the farmers will do their best in that direction. I am glad also that Parliament recognises that the agricultural labourer must have liberal treatment. The agricultural labourer has stood loyally by the farmer during thirty years of terrible depression, and now the better times have come he must share liberally in the advantages accruing to agriculture. These facts will lead the farmer and the labourer to put forth their utmost efforts in this crisis, but if these skilled men are taken away, even with that increased effort, we shall fail to produce the food that is necessary for the country. That is an alarming prospect.

I will not trouble the Committee with more than one case, but I have a letter which I received on Monday morning from a farmer who is occupying a scattered farm. He has 143 bullocks and 620 sheep, besides several horses and ponies. He has only one man. That man went before a local tribunal and was exempted until August. The military appealed, and the Appeal Tribunal shortened the period of exemption to 17th March. This farmer will have no other man left on his holding. Though he does not grow corn, he cuts a little hay, and at this time, when he has 143 ewes to lamb, it must be plain to anybody who understands anything of cattle that the taking away of that man will jeopardise the health and life of a large number of these beasts, which is a very serious thing to do at the present day, when prices are so high. When the appeal was taken by the military representative it came before a tribunal which could not be fully conversant with the circumstances, and they decided to leave this farmer in this serious position, with all his stock and no one to help him. It is monstrous! The Government cannot realise what they are doing, or else they would never, through the military, allow such action as this. Therefore we do claim the right of appeal to the President of the Board of Agriculture in cases such as this.

I may mention another case which is a little less glaring. The man is a butcher and also a farmer. He has a crippled arm, and his son is being taken away. The most important question at present is to have horsemen to plough the land. We shall not get them from the returned soldiers, but these men whom it is proposed to take now are skilled men on the farm, and know the farms. The soldier, be he as loyal as he will—and the British soldier tries to do his duty wherever he goes—will not know the farm like the man who has been bred on it. I cannot see the justice of taking away these few men, who, at any rate, will take at least six months to train, at a time when they are wanted to till the soil, and sending back other soldiers who would be as efficient as soldiers. I have no doubt, as our indispensable men would be after six months' training. In addition to the difficulty with regard to horsemen, there is the further difficulty that we can hardly get our horses shod. I know a case not far from me in which the tribunal again gave exemption for a considerable time, and the military appealed, and that man will be taken away. Yet his is the only smithy within a very large area. This is destructive to the great purpose of food production. We cannot work our horses barefooted and I do ask the Under-Secretary to instruct the military representatives to pay more regard to the decisions of the local tribunals, composed of men who have full knowledge of the requirements of the district.

I will make one further appeal on the question of the milk supply. We are in danger of a milk famine in this country. It is difficult to get men to milk. I know it is said, "Get women to do it." We cannot do so. There are exceptions. You will get a woman to come in the morning and milk three or four cows, but often "other women have to get their husbands breakfasts. It may mean in some cases that there are 250 cows to be milked and the men have to be up at four o'clock in the morning, and it takes twelve men. You cannot do it with women, but we cannot get men. My partner, only last night, appealed to me by telephone to know what was he to do. Was he to appeal against the taking away of one man?" "No," I said, "you must not do that." But if the other men are taken we shall not be able to carry on the milk supply. Ours is an ordinary case. Anybody knows that there are large numbers of men who have given up keeping cows altogether because of the difficulty of getting men to do it. We know what the danger of that is to the community. We know how the children will suffer, and with the great loss of men which we have through this sad war, we want especially to take care of those children. It is of national importance that we should have our men left in the agricultural districts who are willing and able to do the milking.

The Board of Agriculture are doing their best to increase the food supply. They are calling on the local war committees to inspect land, and where they see land insufficiently cultivated they have the power to take possession of that land and till it. That is all right and may be of service, if this unhappy war goes on another year, next year when we get the machinery to put it into effect. But for this season it is impossible. They have not the men to cultivate the land, they have not the horses to plough to increase the food supply this year, but if we have man-power enough to cultivate the land which we have already in hand, and to cultivate it well, we shall do much more, I submit, to increase the food supply this year than we shall do under the scheme of the Board of Agriculture for increasing the acreage under tillage, which will be good enough in the future when you have machinery to give effect to it. But it will not avail us this year, and from that point of view I submit that it is most important that we should have men enough left on the land to develop it to its fullest capability, in order that we may produce food right out of hand.

The farmers are anxious to do their best, and I believe that the agricultural labourers have recognised their responsibility, and I ask the Government, in fairness, to let us know what men we have a reasonable prospect of keeping permanently, and to let us feel that when the local tribunal, with full knowledge of the case, come to a decision, that decision will not be lightly overruled. But if instructions are given to military representatives to ask for a reversal of the local decision, then, if you would give agriculturists a right of appeal to the Board of Agriculture, I am sure that it would remove a lot of friction and avert the mistakes that are now frequently made through the mistaken zeal of the military representative. He is anxious to get men for the Army. I respect his motive, but from the nature of his profession he does not give due regard to the great importance of increasing our food supply. I have bothered the Under-Secretary a good deal with these cases. He has always given me a most patient and courteous consideration, and I am not sure that I am not stretching the point when I say that he has often agreed with me, but has not had the power to give effect to his own belief. Agriculturists are determined to do their duty, but their duty will be more irksome than ever if we do not get justice at the hands of the War Office in dealing with these men, who should be left on the land.

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Macpherson)

The House always listen with the greatest possible respect and interest to my hon. Friend (Sir J. Spear) when he deals with a subject peculiarly his own, and I think, in putting the point of view of the farmers of this country, he did so with great fairness. I was glad to see that he realised that, so far as the War Office is concerned, the one point they have in view is that, whatever happens, there must be no lack of men for the divisions which are so gallantly fighting the country's battles. I am glad he recognised that fact. As I understand his speech, it amounted to this, that, so far as we could, we should do everything possible to send back as many skilled men from the Army as we can, and to avoid as far as possible taking away from various farms in the country skilled men. I am not quite sure that I agree with him on one or two points of detail. I think he is not right in saying that we deviated from the Bath agreement. He has knowledge which I do not pretend to possess, but, as I understand, we have not done so. The facts which I have at my disposal are as follows: We had in the country up to six weeks ago 60,000 men who were placed at our disposal by various local tribunals. That is where, to my mind, the hon. Gentleman was wrong. I am perfectly certain that my hon. Friend, with that fairness which characterised his speech, will not say that we would have outstepped what we could fairly do if we had called up those 60,000 men allocated by the various tribunals. But there were certain considerations which were recognised by the Government—

Sir J. SPEAR

It is true that these men were only temporarily exempted by the local tribunal, but those tribunals acted according to the instructions of the Local Government Board, given to them as to the conduct of their proceedings; and that step was taken before we knew that the wheat crop of the world had fallen 25 per cent., and before we knew of the development of the submarine menace. Altered conditions demand altered arrangements, and the fact that the tribunals were justified in only partially exempting these men six months ago does not hold good at all today when the question of the food supply is far more acute than it was when the tribunals carried out the instructions of the Local Government Board.

Mr. MACPHERSON

I quite realise the position which my hon. Friend takes up, but may I meet it by saying this? Assuming it to be true, how have the War Office met it? Six months ago the tribunals of this country exempted conditionally for a short time 60,000 men. The War Cabinet is not the War Office, nor is it the Ministry of Munitions, nor is it in any sense a Government Department; it is the whole authority which is appointed to take cognisance of the various needs of any particular industry, including the indus- try of agriculture. The War Cabinet came to the conclusion that instead of claiming those 60,000 men, placed at its disposal by the tribunals of the country, it should content itself with 30,000 men. I have no doubt that the farmers of the country made very vigorous representations. I can imagine that from the speech of my hon. Friend. Instead of even the 60,000 or the 30,000 men, the War Cabinet have only taken 10,610, and I think my hon. Friend must agree that instead of the Government or the War Office being vindictive, so far as agriculturists are concerned, they have been very much the reverse, and the fact that only 10,610 men have been taken seems to mo to show that the War Cabinet have behaved in a generous way towards the agricultural interest. My Friend referred to the question of calling out men from classes B 1 and C 1, and he said that the War Office did not propose to call up these men. I have no official knowledge of that at all, and I am not prepared to agree with what he said, although I am not prepared to dispute it. My own view is that it is extremely unlikely that the War Office, in view of he present need of men in this country who are fit for general service, would bind itself down at the present moment not to call up men of B 1 or C 1 for the purpose of carrying on the military side of the life of the nation.

My hon. Friend said he regretted that there was no appeal to the President of the Board of Agriculture. I am one of those who have a great respect for the President of the Board of Agriculture, not only as President of that Department, but as a very distinguished farmer, a man who knows the real needs of the country and the best use that can be made of skilled men in agriculture. I admit all that. What are the real facts? In common with a great many other hon. Members, my hon. Friend seems to think that the War Office is entirely responsible for calling up all these men, but, as I pointed out the other day in the Debate, the War Office has really, either in theory or practice, no more control over the tribunals than any individual in this House. Those tribunals were appointed in order to stem what seemed to be regarded by some as something that might be in the nature of Prussianising this country. But there are appeal tribunals as well as local tribunals, and those appeal tribunals are composed of prominent men in various parts of the country, men who are supposed to know the local conditions as thoroughly as any of the local men. Even supposing the Appeal Tribunal obeys the dictates, as my hon. Friend put it, of the military representative, and does not grant an exemption, there is still an appeal to the Central Tribunal.

Sir J. SPEAR

If the local tribunal allows an appeal, but in nearly every case it is not allowed.

Mr. MACPHERSON

I am told that where an appeal is allowed the Central Tribunal takes great care to get information from the Board of Agriculture in each individual case, not only in England but in Scotland; and if that is so, and if the Central Tribunal is guided by the information it thus gets from the Board of Agriculture, then that is equivalent to an appeal to the President of the Board of Agriculture. I think the hon. Member realises as well as I do that the War Office is absolutely powerless, so far as each individual case is concerned. The power has been extracted from its grasp, because of the appointment of the local and appeal tribunals, and we are just as powerless at the War Office to deal with cases coming before the tribunals as any hon. Member of this House.

I do not know I can say any more, except this, that I should like to point out what we at the War Office are really doing in order to increase the supply of labour on the land. I have already told the Committee what we have abstained from doing. Quite recently we have selected from the Army at least 2,400 men—skilled horsemen and skilled ploughmen—to be sent into districts where recruiting has been very severe among agriculturists. We are also forming agricultural companies with about 30,000 men in order to help agriculturists all over the country. Not only that, but we have promised we shall employ 5,000 German prisoners, again in the interests of agriculture. I think really that that more than makes up for the 10,200 men we have taken away, even although we were allowed to take 60,000. I feel sure, with these few facts before him, my hon. Friend will realise that, wherever the blame lies, it does not really lie with the War Office. I am sure, too, he realises that we have a paramount duty to the country to perform, and so long as we do it consistently with the efficiency of the various industries in the country, he-would be the last person in the world to ask the War Office to desist from taking men to join the Colours in order to defend their country. I do not think I can usefully add anything to what I have said. I hope I have met every point raised by the hon. Gentleman. I am sure he realises that the War Office is not the ruthless institution which many people believe it to be, and that it really tries its level best to meet the demands of every industry in the country, and particularly of agriculture, because we realise that without food production in this country we cannot have good fighting men.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved, "That a sum, not exceeding £1,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of the Pay, etc., of His Majesty's Army (including Army Reserve) at Home and Abroad (exclusive of India), which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1918."

Resolutions to be reported upon Monday next: Committee to sit again upon Monday next.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

Whereupon Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of the 12th February, proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn."

Question put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at Half after Nine o'clock till Monday next, pursuant to the Order of the House of the 12th February.