§ 38. Colonel ROPNERasked the Minister of Agriculture whether his latest statistics indicate an improvement in the financial position of smallholders, and how the number of bankruptcies of such men in 1934 compares with the total in 1933?
§ Major GEORGE DAVIES (Lord of the Treasury)I have been asked to reply. My right hon. Friend has no statistics which indicate the financial position of smallholders as such, but he has reason to believe that on the whole smallholders, in common with other farmers, have shared in the general improvement in the position of agriculture as shown by the index of agricultural prices in 1934 as compared with 1933—an improvement which has continued during the first half of the present year. As regards bankruptcies, the latest return shows that during the first six months of 1935 six receiving orders and deeds of arrangement were made against smallholders, compared with eight in the corresponding period of last year. The numbers for the years 1934 and 1933 were 16 and 21 respectively.