FOOD PRODUCTION.

HC Deb 22 October 1940 vol 365 cc940-1020

The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. R. S. Hudson)

On the last occasion when we had a Debate on Food Production, we were in the middle of, or two-thirds of the way through, the cereal year. Now the cereal year has been completed, and, although it would really not he in the public interest to disclose the exact figures, I think it is fair to say that our food situation has been materially improved. We had a very bad winter, and on top of that we had a severe drought this summer, but, in spite of these two handicaps, and despite the fact that the yield per acre of most of our important crops is less this year than a normal average, nevertheless, owing to the increase of 2,000,000 acres in our arable land, the total production of foodstuffs has been very materially increased. Cereals played the greater part in the increase, and oats formed the largest single individual item. The fact that oats can be used for either animal feeding or, if necessary, for human foodstuffs is clearly a great advantage to the nation. Farmers by no means concentrated merely on the production of cereals. They grew increased quantities of other crops, especially of feeding-stuffs for cattle, and the acreage both of potatoes and roots has been materially increased. In other words, farmers, in spite of their difficulties, responded well to the call to make themselves increasingly self-supporting, and one of the results has been not merely an increase in the amount of cereals and foodstuffs grown, but an increase in our total livestock population. The number of cattle has increased, and, in particular, the number of dairy cattle is up on last year.

The net result is that we enter on the second winter of the war with considerably increased reserves of meat on the hoof, and British agriculture is in a well-balanced condition and able to face the demands which next year's campaign will make on food production. A great deal of the credit for this situation obviously belongs to the farmers and farm labourers, but a great deal also is due to the work of the war agricultural committees. The House will know that soon after I was appointed I asked the committees to undertake a field-to-field survey of the farms. The back of that survey has been broken, and I have had an opportunity lately of looking at the individual forms which the various committees drew up for the use of the district committees and those who were making the survey. Naturally the forms vary considerably, but what has impressed me most is the tremendous amount of individual thought that has obviously been given by each county committee in the drawing-up of the forms in the way they thought would best bring out the information that they required in the light of their own particular needs. I have a collection of the forms, and I shall be glad to show them to any hon. Member who is interested, because I think they reflect very great credit indeed on the members of the committees.

Obviously, the work has been done better in some areas than in others, but taking it by and large the individual farmers on the district committees who have done the work ought to be complimented by this House, for many of them have devoted three, four or five hours, a day to this public work in addition to trying to carry out the work on their own farms. I am sure that the success of our food production campaign next year and the increase which I confidently expect will be very largely due to their efforts. One of the most encouraging things from the reports I have received is that they have everywhere been met as friends and that the lessons of agricultural research and technical advice are being taken to individual farms throughout the country where up till now no agricultural organiser, let alone a scientist, has ever set foot. That is due to the fact that we have been able to second to this work a large number of persons, skilled technical people, who were engaged on teaching at the universities and farm institutes. We have distributed those as far as possible throughout the counties so that each district committee, where possible, has a technical officer attached to it. I am greatly indebted to Professor Scott Watson, of Oxford University, for his help and the work that he has done in fitting all these technical officers into their jobs throughout the country. The personal liaison officers whom I appointed have done invaluable work in keeping me in touch with the problems of the various counties and keeping the counties in touch with the policy which we at headquarters wanted pursued.

May I turn in detail to some of the work which the committees have been doing? One of the most important, of course, is dealing with the question of derelict land. It is difficult to define derelict land, but I think the House will agree that it can be regarded as potentially useful agricultural land which for various reasons, chiefly economic, has fallen into a condition of continued neglect. As I fold the House in July, I have impressed on local county committees the importance of first things first and have urged them to deal in the first instance with land, whether it be complete farms or fields on individual farms, which is capable of being brought back into cultivation to yield a harvest next year. In addition, there is a certain number of cases of land round large towns which has been reserved or bought for building which the committees have to tackle, and there are extensive areas in certain parts, especially in the Fen district, which, owing to the absence of hard roads or to the lack of adequate main drainage, have gone completely out of cultivation. We are proceeding to tackle those areas. One is already being dealt with, and the necessary hard roads are being constructed. In another area, which I visited the other day, as a result of some big improvements in main drainage, which will start on 1st November, land which has hitherto been flooded every winter, and therefore hopeless from an agricultural point of view, will now be available for cultivation. The three county committees concerned will, I hope, get this land dealt with this winter and brought into a condition of reasonable cultivation next year.

In addition, smaller drainage is being dealt with and is making progress, but there is still a great deal needed to be done. I think that many of the counties have hardly yet started to take advantage of the Government grant for either mole drainage or the more recently instituted grant for tile drainage. Counties are, however, beginning to make surveys, and a number of them have appointed district officers to deal specifically with drainage. The sort of problem that is involved may be illustrated by one county which made a survey and found that over 7,000 miles of farm ditches required cleaning out. This county hopes to tackle that work this winter with the use of gang labour, which I have authorised, and the House will readily understand the great improvement of the grassland in that county which will follow from the cleaning-out of over 7,000 miles of farm ditches if we are able to carry it through.

Mr. de Rothschild (Isle of Ely)

Is my right hon. Friend taking any steps to arrange with the railways that their culverts are also cleared out for the benefit of farmers?

Mr. Hudson

If my hon. Friend has any particular case in mind, I shall be very glad to look into it. It is primarily a matter for the county committees. If they find their schemes are interrupted, or made more difficult, or hindered in any way, by the railways, they have full powers to see that the work is done. As an illustration of what we are doing, and as an encouragement, I might mention that schemes for dealing with open water courses to the extent of £600,000 have been approved in the first nine months of this year, compared with an expenditure of £700,000 in the previous 27 months; so it will be realised that we are making considerable progress in that respect.

Next I turn to the question of credit, which my hon. Friend the Member for Evesham (Mr. De la Bère) proposes to raise, but I am sure that even he will be glad to know that as a result of conversations which I have had with the chairmen and the governors of the leading banks the banks have agreed to appoint, and have in fact appointed, liaison officers in every county to discuss with the county war agricultural executive committees the difficulties of individual farmers who, in the opinion of the committees, ought to have credit, but have not been able to get it.

Mr. Granville (Eye)

Will they have power to give reduced rates?

Mr. Hudson

I will deal with that matter. Some meetings have already been held, and I think we shall get some extremely interesting results from these discussions. It would be premature at present to draw any conclusions, because the first meetings have only just been held, and we must wait three or four months to see how things work. The House may be interested in the report of one of the earlier meetings in a county at which it was stated that the banks had issued instructions to branch managers that no farming advance was to be refused without reference to the local head office. It is still possible that the advance will be refused, but this arrangement means that each individual case will be looked at not once but six times. That committee made arrangements that if there was any case of a farmer being apparently handicapped in carrying out the directions of the committee through lack of working capital the liaison officer representing his local bank should be consulted by the committee, and if the farmer concerned agreed his case would then be discussed frankly to see what credit arrangements could be made. Therefore, I hope that this arrangement has laid the foundations for a workable scheme by which farmers, at all events, can be assured that no farmer who deserves credit will be refused.

Mr. John Morgan (Doncaster)

Are these liaison officers connected with the banking interests?

Mr. Hudson

Obviously; otherwise they would be of no use. The whole point is that the banks appoint one of their officials as liaison officer to discuss with the members of the committee problems in that particular county, and that official is then in a position to deal with all the branches of his bank in that particular county, and will be able to explain to the committee why the advances should be given or should not be given.

Mr. De la Bère (Evesham)

Will they deal with those who already have loans outstanding with the banks, because that question of outstanding loans, amounting to £50,000,000, has been for five years, and is now, really more important than the question of additional credit?

Mr. Hudson

They will deal with all matters affecting those concerned. I said on a recent occasion that there is a great deal of difference between credit and capital. One of the purposes of the liaison will be to investigate the extent of the problem and to ascertain how much is due to lack of credit and how much to lack of capital, and then we shall be in a much better position to deal with any difficulties which still survive. At present we are working in something of a fog because there is this confusion between credit and capital. My hon. Friend the Member for Eye (Mr. Granville) asked about the rates of interest. I personally have never believed that the difference between 3 and 5 per cent. had any material effect at all. The difference between 3 and 5 per cent. on £100 for six months is only £1, and it is absolutely illusory to compare, for example, the difference in return to the farmer, which is affected by the weather or by the processes of cultivation or by disease among his animals, with that difference in the rates of interest. It really does not make any practical difference at all. It may make a psychological difference, but there is no practical difference.

Mr. De la Bère

The £50,000,000 which is outstanding makes in the aggregate a difference of £1,000,000 a year to the farming community, and it is just because of that that the banks will never do anything but "lobby" with the Treasury to prevent any concession being made. It is a very real scandal and it cannot be passed over lightly—cannot, in fact, be passed over at all.

Mr. Hudson

My hon. Friend will have an opportunity of developing his point, but I am convinced in my own mind, from all the information which I have been able to obtain, that the debts owed by farmers to merchants and dealers are far more important matters to them, because the rate of interest is usually very much higher than they have to pay to the bank for an advance; and if they transfer their indebtedness from the merchants to the banks I am certain that that will be to the advantage of farmers, taking the country as a whole.

Mr. Granville

Will the farmer have direct access to the liaison officer, or the opportunity of an appeal to him to state his case?

Mr. Hudson

I have just said that if the farmer agrees, his whole position will be discussed—and obviously you cannot discuss a man's financial affairs fully unless he does agree. Arrangements will be made for the whole matter to be gone into between the farmer, the bank and the committee.

In addition to bank credit there has always been the Agricultural Requisites Scheme. Not a great deal of use was made of that scheme in the early days, but since then we have made a number of concessions and widened its scope, and the scheme has now been extended to cover any case where the agricultural committee are satisfied that it is required in the interests of increased food production. It now covers practically everything that the farmer requires to buy, with the exception of livestock and it includes such services as mole draining, ditching, the overhaul of his machinery, ploughing, cultivating, harvesting and threshing. Where the Agricultural Requisites Scheme has been used, we have found that it has resulted in a material increase of food production, and I sincerely hope that hon. Members, when visiting their constituencies will assist us by urging farmers to take advantage of this requisites scheme and not to regard it as being in any way derogatory to do so, as has happened, I am afraid, in some cases in the past.

Now perhaps I might say a word about agricultural labour. Great fears have been expressed in the course of the year about the adequacy of the agricultural labour available. I am glad to say that there has been adequate recruitment from various sources, including the Land Army, volunteers from the schools and universities, and so forth, and that the actual labour available has been adequate for cultivation during the year. The situation was helped by the fact that the grain harvest was light and was got in during extremely good weather conditions. The problem arises of what is to happen this winter. I have sent circulars to committees impressing upon them the need for urging the farmers not to dismiss or to stand off labour during the winter, because, for one thing, of the magnitude of the tasks of maintenance that require to be done during the winter. I have also urged that it would be a thousand pities if, as a result of farmers standing men off, such men were lost to the agricultural industry. If a man remains unemployed for any length of time, for more than a very short time, it is clearly unfair to keep him unemployed. He must be allowed to get a job in some other occupation. I earnestly hope that this problem will not arise.

In regard to machinery, the House will remember that in July I gave a comparison of the machinery available during the last war and the machinery available in this war. I said that an estimate had been formed and that my predecessor hoped that, as a result of the measures that he had taken, there would be 70,000 tractors this June instead of the 53,000, I think it was, last year. Actually, the census shows that, instead of 70,000 tractors being available and in use, there are actually 76,000, an increase of 44 per cent. in the year. Again, that reflects very great credit indeed on my predecessor and also upon the help that various agricultural machinery makers rendered in achieving that result. We set up county reserves, which now amount to about 2,000 tractors, and they are being used by the counties. All the surplus over that reserve has been released for sale to individual farmers. The situation is still not completely satisfactory, and there is need for a good deal more tractors and implements, but we are pushing on as fast as we can. The House will realise the difficulties with which certain manufacturers are faced to-day and about which I need not go into details.

Sir Ernest Shepperson (Leominster)

The supply of tractor ploughs has not been increased.

Mr. Hudson

I know, but my hon. Friend will realise, without my going into details, the serious difficulties that we are up against in obtaining raw materials. We have taken what steps we can to see that the materials we have are used to the best advantage. We have given the war agricultural committees power to organise and to utilise the various agricultural contractors throughout the country so that there might be no overlapping. I think more might be done by farmers by co-operating with their neighbours. A good deal has been done and is being done by farmers loaning machines to their neighbours, but a good deal more could be done, in view of the shortage of machinery.

Mr. Haslam (Horncastle)

Have steps been taken to conserve skilled mechanics for firms who service agricultural machinery?

Mr. Hudson

Yes, Sir. I have been in communication with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour on that very point, but it would be wrong for me to say that every mechanic engaged in servicing agricultural machinery must be kept in that occupation and not released for general munitions service.

Mr. Haslam

I am speaking of the case in which there is only one man left, and I am trying to keep him.

Mr. Hudson

We have impressed upon the committees the importance of the various kinds of labour, and of intensive training to help the position out, but it Would be entirely wrong to say to my right hon. Friend that we must keep the whole of these men.

Mr. Haslam

I never asked for the whole but only for a small fraction.

Sir Joseph Lamb (Stone)

Could my right hon. Friend do something with regard to threshing machines?

Mr. Hudson

There ought to be an adequate supply, and I think there is.

Sir J. Lamb

No.

Mr. Hudson

Taking the country as a whole, I think there is an adequate number of threshing machines. I know there has been a temporary shortage in one or two areas, but I am confident that there will be a sufficient number for the harvest to be dealt with in due time. My withers are rather unwrung in this matter, because I assumed that threshing was not got on with too quickly, as it is much safer to keep the stuff in ricks than to get it out into the port mills. There is enough machinery to do the job.

Sir J. Lamb

Many small farmers have not been able to get machines at all.

Mr. Hudson

They should get into touch with their local committees. As regards fertilisers, thanks very largely to the Ministry of Supply we were able to provide a considerably increased amount of fertilisers last year as compared with the year before. There was an increase of 31 per cent. in sulphate of ammonia, 26 per cent. of nitro-chalk, 22 per cent. of basic slag, and 11 per cent. of super phosphates, and this represents a very considerable improvement. With the exception of potash, which, for obvious reasons, is extremely short and in the use of which farmers have been asked to exercise the most rigid economy, in the coming year, again thanks to the Ministry of Supply, I hope that we shall be able to place at the disposal of farmers fertilisers in quantities in excess even of this year's supplies. It is very unsafe to be unduly optimistic, because the position depends upon the shipping position and so forth, but, even making all those allowances, I have a strong hope that we shall, in fact, be able to provide considerably more fertilisers this year even than we did last year.

With regard to seeds, we are extremely indebted to the Seeds Advisory Committee. As a result of their labours it is fair to say that there was no shortage of any essential seeds last year. The number of complaints sent to the Ministry by individuals who were not able to obtain seeds was entirely negligible. In regard to the coming year, the situation is more difficult because our foreign sources of supply have very largely been cut off, but we are making arrangements to grow more seeds at home. We are also arranging with the Australian and New Zealand Governments for the growth out there of an increased acreage of seeds. We have very much in mind the problem of reseeding many of the ploughed-up acres which will arise next year and the year after.

As regards feeding-stuffs, we have made strenuous efforts to try to accumulate a reserve throughout this summer. I am afraid that our efforts have been rather hindered by the drought, which involved farmers using imported feeding-stuffs in August and September, whereas we hoped they would not need to call upon them until the end of September or till October. Although we have accumulated a reserve, we have therefore distributed some of the reserve among the farmers, and farmers must still exercise the most rigid economy. I cannot possibly foretell what the shipping position will be this winter and how much feeding-stuffs we shall be able to import. As regards the different types of stock, we are giving priority to dairy stock and are releasing about 70 per cent. this month of imported concentrated feeding-stuffs as compared with the pre-war rate. After providing for dairy cows, cattle and sheep will come next and the supplies for these will be little more than half normal. As far as pigs and poultry are concerned, I said originally that the supplies would be about one-third of the normal and I hope we shall be able to maintain supplies at that figure. Clearly, both pig and poultry feeders should make as much use as possible of alternative sources of supply and rigid economy in all feeding-stuffs must be the order of the day this winter.

Sir Percy Hurd (Devizes)

What is being done to encourage local authorities to go more fully into the scheme for the collection of kitchen waste?

Mr. Hudson

It is no good encouraging local authorities to go into that scheme until we are sure of how best we can dispose of the material. The first thing is for the farmer to express a readiness to take the swill. I sent a circular to the committees a short time ago, instructing them, where they considered it necessary, to appoint a special officer to go around the farmers, and I am bound to say that the result has been extremely disappointing. No doubt swill is available and capable of collection and if only we could increase the demand for it, then we would be in a position in which my right hon. Friends the Minister of Supply and the Minister of Health could both take the necessary steps to urge and if necessary compel local authorities to collect the stuff. But clearly there is no good in collecting it, unless you can dispose of it.

Sir Percy Harris (Bethnal Green, South-West)

There is the question of transport.

Mr. Hudson

Yes, transport is also a question to be considered in this connection, but the chief thing is getting the farmers to realise that the material is available and is capable of being used. Of course there are certain dangers inherent in the use of swill unless it has been properly boiled. There was a bad outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease only a week or two ago, which was traced directly to the use of swill which had not been properly treated and, clearly, it is most important that the swill should be properly treated, disinfected and boiled before it is used.

Mr. R. C. Morrison (Tottenham, North)

In those circumstances would it not be better for the Ministry to urge the local authorities to undertake the boiling of the material? They are in a much better position to do it than the farmers, and incidentally the transport of the resultant material would present fewer difficulties.

Mr. Hudson

The hon. Member has been in touch with me about this matter and has been most helpful but he knows that there are tremendous difficulties in the way. Even the transport of the boiled swill presents difficulties because boiling increases the bulk. I am still in hope, however, that as the winter proceeds we shall be able to persuade farmers to make use of this material when it has been properly treated.

Sir Richard Acland (Barnstaple)

How is the farmer expected to express this demand for something which is not there? What is the farmer expected to do, before the local authority can be told to do something else?

Mr. Hudson

One of the obvious things is for the farmer to tell the officer of the committee—the officer who has been appointed for this purpose—that he is willing to take x cwts. or x tons of this swill per week, or per month, if it is properly prepared. When we have that information we could take steps to see that the swill was provided and everything that hon. Members can do in their own constituencies to make that possibility known, will be welcome and I hope that farmers will take advantage of the opportunity.

Sir P. Hurd

Is the Minister going to speak of the development of pig clubs?

Mr. Hudson

Yes, that is going on quite well. Perhaps I may now proceed to say a few words about the controversial subject of feeding-stuffs and fertilisers. I was very glad to be able to announce with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland that the Minister of Food had agreed to stabilise the price of feeding-stuffs until next year and that the Ministry of Supply had agreed to stabilise the price of fertilisers. With the stabilisation of these two important elements in agricultural costs of production, I think that farmers now should be able to look ahead with a greater sense of confidence and security.

The principal factors in the cost of production are, in their order of importance, (1) feeding-stuffs, (2) labour, (3) rent, (4) fertilisers and (5) miscellaneous. Feeding-stuffs and labour together amount to more than half of the cost. As hon. Members know, agricultural wages have recently been raised, and unless something unforeseen occurs I do not anticipate that there will be any substantial variation during the coming year. Agricultural rents, even in war-time, rise very slowly and I do not anticipate any marked increase as far as other costs are concerned. Therefore, if we stabilise feeding-stuffs, fertilisers, rent and labour and, at the same time guarantee the farmer a market and prices we shall have gone a very long way towards enabling him to plan his production for the coming 12 months with a reasonable sense of security. This is of particular importance in the case of livestock and livestock prices.

I hardly think that the extent to which a guaranteed market is of importance to the farmer and the benefit which it confers upon him, have been adequately realised, but in the course of the last few weeks we have had a very good example. Owing to the prolonged drought, the number of cattle and sheep presented for slaughter has been very much greater than the normal and although a certain amount of restriction has had to be imposed, the Ministry of Food during the last few weeks has taken 50 per cent. more cattle and sheep than is normal at this time of year. We have been able to do that as a result of restricting the issue of frozen and chilled meat from store, as a result of increasing the meat ration, and as a result of extending the supply of fresh English meat to the Forces. The Ministry of Food has paid for that 50 per cent. extra at the current prices which were fixed in August.

It would be useful if hon. Members when talking over this matter with farmers in their constituencies would ask those farmers to think for a moment what would have been the effect on the market of such operations if there had not been a guaranteed market and guaranteed prices. In the first week of October, the number of cattle presented was 59,000 instead of normal marketings at that time of year of some 44,000, and the number of sheep, instead of being 240,000 was 333,000. Think of the slump in prices that would have occurred, if there had not been a guaranteed market.

A friend of mine in the farming world told me the other day that he thought the existence of a guaranteed market alone was worth at least 3s. 6d. a cwt. to a farmer in normal times, and it has been worth very much more than that in the last few weeks, as a result of the exceptional circumstances following the drought. I know that in farming circles a certain amount of disappointment has been expressed at the prices which were announced for 1941. I do not think I need deal with that matter beyond reminding hon. Members that the Prime Minister dealt with it in the letter which he sent to the National Farmers' Union. I am satisfied, taking the whole picture of agriculture and of the prices together with the conditions which we have now created, that we have given that stability and assurance of reasonable remuneration for which for years the farming community have been asking, and I am equally certain that they will respond to the Prime Minister's call to do everything to achieve victory.

I am afraid that I have detained the House too long already. There are other matters, each one of which could well form the subject of a separate speech—agricultural education, agricultural research, the fight against animal diseases and so forth. As many hon. Members know, the farmers are very concerned about the future. Agriculture is a long-term problem. You have to plan many years ahead, and therefore it is quite understandable, and everyone must sympathise with the desire of the farmer in his anxiety to know what will be the conditions which he will have to face not merely at the end of 1941 but in the succeeding years. Personally, I am very glad to see so much thought on all sides is being devoted to that matter, because the one thing we have to try and do—and as far as I personally am concerned I shall do my best in this respect—is to see that the farmer is not led up the garden path again as he was over the repeal of the Corn Production Acts. First of all we must secure victory, but with what time we can spare we must try to see whether we can work out a sound scheme for the future in conditions that are, of course, at present pretty well unpredictable. I was very interested, in looking through the Debate of 11th July, to note the remark made by the hon. Member for East Ham, South (Mr. Barnes). He said: I see no reason why at this present moment a survey should not be used by the Department for the purpose of getting those conditions in a preparatory stage, so that when the war is over we can once more confront the problem of agriculture as a normal part of our life. We shall then get the maximum degree of unity, an efficient agricultural system related to the needs of the consumers as well as the producers, and we shall be on the way to forming the basis of permanent agricultural prosperity."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th July, 1940; col. 1464, Vol. 362.] I welcome, as I am sure all hon. Members on all sides of the House do, a statement of that nature. I for one am doing my best, with such leisure as I have, from the immediate preoccupation of getting increased food production, to try and see if we cannot plan for the future in order to make sure that agriculture takes its place successfully in the post-war era.

Mr. John Morgan (Doncaster)

I feel that I should make reference to the fact that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) is not in his place. I understand that he is slightly indisposed, and therefore it has fallen upon myself and these benches to respond to the Minister's statement. I could not capture at almost any stage any feeling that we were discussing the basis of the agricultural industry in war-time with any sense of urgency, but that we have been listening to a rather pedestrian traversée of the general conditions of the industry, without being given any real feeling that the industry is being definitely shaped to face any particular planned place for it in the war-time food policy.

The Minister, in opening, indicated two of his handicaps, one of which was last winter's weather, but he might also have paid tribute to two other distinct advantages which have fallen to him. One was the extraordinary spell of harvest weather which enabled him to get his under-average yield crop in the pink of condition. I cannot imagine that there is a spoilt corn stack in the country or that we have not been able to get every ounce of what was there. The second advantage —and it is his greatest advantage—is that he is flanked by an extraordinarily effective Food Ministry. We are discussing our agricultural situation to-day in the light of the fact that the Ministry of Food has such a firm hold on the general food situation. That may be an embarrassment to the Minister of Agri- culture, because we have had no indication of his relationship with the Ministry of Food. I have an idea that in recent months there has been a certain amount of strain between them, and that in some way or other the Ministry of Agriculture is not responding in the way that best fits the outlook of the Ministry of Food with regard to their major responsibility of feeding the nation as a whole. For instance, when I hear the Minister say that cereal production has gone up very largely because of the inclusion of the 2,000,000 acres, that does not make me feel that the agricultural industry is responding to the nation's demand in regard to food. At this moment there is a Canadian Ministry of Agriculture in this country whose problem is to get rid of the Canadian wheat harvest. Deputation upon deputation are waiting upon the Canadian Government, according to papers which have been handed to me this week, asking for advances upon these crops; the Ministry of Food does not want English wheat. It is throwing it back to the industry at 70s. a quarter and causing the poultry keeper to wind up his business in consequence.

Mr. Hudson

I do not want to interrupt the hon. Member, but he is completely misinformed when he says that the Ministry of Food do not want wheat. On the contrary, the whole of our planning for this coming year is based on the advice of the Ministry of Food, and one of the first things they asked was to sow wheat.

Mr. Morgan

I stand subject to correction. But, of course, the farmer is to produce wheat because the Ministry of Food do not want to keep the poultry keeper alive on the imported wheats. I do not see the Ministry of Food parting with 40s. wheat from abroad when they are being called upon by the agricultural industry to pay up to 70s. Farmers must grow their own wheat. Barley is up by 100 per cent., at five guineas a quarter, with milk production falling. I know that one must qualify any statement of the kind, but I say this because I know that it is in our own power to adjust the position and secure an increase in milk production at quite an early stage, and therefore such criticism cannot aid the enemy. The enemy should not be given the satisfaction of knowing that actually our milk production is not as it should be. But beer is winning at the expense of milk. I am not speaking now as a man who is against beer, but I say quite frankly that if corn and beef prices are allowed to go ahead of milk prices, there will be an inevitable pull on the farmer in the direction of corn and beef growing. The fact is that the dairy farmer in this country, if you examine the position on a price basis, has had an increase of about 40 per cent. in his price level, while his costs have been very much affected by feeding-stuffs and elements of that kind, with the result that the corn grower and the beef farmer are gaining hand over fist in relation to the dairy farmer. In consequence—and the figures must be known to the Minister —we are not, taking a forward view, in a satisfactory position with regard to our milk supply.

The Minister is committed to trying to get another 2,000,000 acres under the plough between now and the next crop year. Is he satisfied that he can do that, and get the land cropped? In the 2,000,000 acres he has in mind must be included a type of land that is more difficult to handle than the previous 2,000,000 acres. Farmers inevitably go first to the land that is easiest to handle, and which is likely to give the best result soonest. The Minister shakes his head, but my experience is that the second 2,000,000 acres will take much more finding than the first 2,000,000. Again, he is very sanguine. Time, of course, is a factor that must always be taken into account where agriculture is concerned, and I am satisfied that, on the first year's reckoning, the 2,000,000 acres which have been put under the plough—not necessarily cropped—have not produced an equivalent net increase in human food production. The total yield of foodstuffs available has been increased, but that has had to be diverted, in very large part, to the feeding of aniimals. If the Minister is satisfied that he can satisfactorily handle the next 2,000,000 acres, of course we must await his further statement. At a later stage I want to re-emphasise the way in which this general food policy is being worked out in regard to dairying at the present time.

There is at present a feeling that the Government's agricultural policy, or at least the policy of the Minister, is one which is being worked out in too close association with the National Farmers' Union. I want to be blunt about that. In the hey-day of its authority the Federation of British Industries never had such easy access to a Government Department as the National Farmers' Union have to the Ministry of Agriculture to-day. Unfortunately for the country as a whole, in the present development, prices are pushed to the fore—to do what? To enable the farming industry, called upon by the Government to undertake a development policy, to capitalise that development policy through their prices. The Minister himself has indicated that as far as he is concerned he is prepared to hand the credit position of the agricultural industry over to the banks; he is setting up the necessary machinery to do it and increasing the connections between the banks and the farming industry by appointing liaison officers who are officers of the banks. If that is not delivering the industry over still further to the banks, I do not know what is. If every man's account is to be inspected if he wants further credit, the tendency will be to find that no man will be able to get credit unless he has had his request O.K.'d by the liaison officer[...] operating with the County Agricultural Committees. I think time will show that we are very shy of such a machine, and that we shall try to get away from it by inventing our own credit arrangements.

But the cardinal fault of the present policy in regard to agriculture is that, while the industry is to be called upon to bring into production 4,000,000 acres of land, for which £2 an acre is being offered in respect of possibly two-thirds of it, it costs £10 an acre to get it into cultivation and hold it in production through the year. That is £40,000,000 of capital development, which the fanner is naturally tempted to try to recover, in addition to a fair price for his product, within the war period. So he presses all the time for a price that will cover not only the production of his normal crop, taking war conditions into account, but also the cost of breaking the land down from grass into some form of arable cultivation. He is asking for a price which will enable him to recover, within three years, a capital cost for treating land at a capital cost of £10 an acre.

Sir J. Lamb

Before the hon. Member leaves the question of trade unions, does he wish to suggest that the Ministry should not consult trade unions, either of employés or employers?

Mr. Morgan

With my hon. Friend's permission, I will come back to that a little later. Although I have made only a passing reference to it now, it does represent a main feature of the Ministry's contact with the industry and ought to be a little more closely analysed.

To follow up my other point, it is the cardinal error of the present policy that the farmer is forced to ask for prices which will include the capital cost of the development, to which he is committed, of these 4,000,000 acres. It cannot be done satisfactorily that way from the point of view of the community. It is bound to put him at loggerheads with the Minister of Food. The Minister of Food is facing a world market which is becoming embarrassed by its stocks of food. He can buy on good terms, subject to the restrictions of shipping and credit, and he is being forced in some cases to pay the home farmer twice as much for an article as he could buy it from elsewhere. Now the farmer does not want to be put into a fools' paradise, because if he is, the very thing will happen to him that happened after the last war and which the Minister has just given us an assurance shall not happen again. If his prices are inflated to meet situations that are not strictly related to real price outlooks, he will come down with a crash after this war, no matter what happens, and the uneasiness in the industry is due to the fact that, being so practically-minded, it knows that no matter what assurances a Minister gives about the post-war position, unless realities are faced the farmer will go down. He is very reluctant at this moment to advance further into a morass of development which is not going to be completed by the time the war is over, leaving him to carry the baby and retract his position in order to get back to something like normal.

The second thing I have in mind which is a difficulty at the present time is this: The Ministry of Food is presided over by an obviously competent gentleman. It is very embarrassing to farmers and agriculturists as a whole to find, sometimes, that the Minister launches a campaign urging the growing of more food and that within 36 hours he is followed by a representative of the Ministry of Food assuring the country as a whole that the food outlook is simply splendid. It leads to embarrassment. The food outlook is probably splendid at this moment, but the Minister of Agriculture—with whom we sympathise—is faced with a War Cabinet presided over by a man to whom we all pay full tribute for his splendid leadership, but who is ocean-minded, and thinks in terms of shipping. We have in the Cabinet to-day, quite rightly, representatives of the vast majority of urban and industrial workers in this country, but they think of food in terms of shop prices and access to the supplies. We believe, frankly, that the Food Ministry is dominated by food importers, thinking in terms of the availability of supplies from overseas. The case which the agricultural industry is looking to the Ministry of Agriculture to make is that the industry at home is probably providing half the total food supply of the country, and that the industry should have a very real place in the Ministry itself. It is also justifiable to remind the country that since the last war the industry has shown itself capable of doing a couple of big jobs which really were not on its plate, but the need for which, if the industry had not done them, would have put this country in a serious plight. I refer to agriculture as a whole—I mean, the use of land. Think of the plight of the mining industry to-day had there been no afforestation in these islands. What would have happened with regard to pit props? Then, take sugar. In the last war agriculture in this country produced practically no sugar. To-day it is providing half the total supplies of the country. All this indicates what may be done with the land of this country.

Yet the Minister is not meeting with the same ready co-operation from the industry that his predecessor had at this time last year. There is a reluctance on the part of the individual food producer to go further than he is compelled to go. He is going along the lines of his own preferences as far as he can. He notes what crops pay. But the crops that pay are not necessarily the crops that the Ministry of Food want to-day. One of the most difficult products, one which has about it all the elements of drudgery and heavy capital commitments, is milk. If there is no other upshot of this discussion than that at an early moment an examination is made of what is happening to the milk supply of this country, the discussion will have been worth while. I say, without fear of contradiction, that the development along that front is not satisfactory. It is probably the basis of part of the difficulty which exists between the Ministry of Food and the Ministry of Agriculture. That there is such difficulty in the relation between the two Ministries is broadly sensed by the industry as a whole. The industry is not satisfied that the Ministry of Agriculture, as it is now manned, is capable of standing up to the Ministry of Food. The general public has come to look upon the Ministry of Food as the custodian of its food supplies. It is a bad augury for the future of farming here that the public has not been brought to feel that it is upon agriculture that it depends. People look to Lord Woolton and the Ministry of Food to bring supplies from overseas. If the war comes to an end in 18 months, nothing will have been done for the future of the agricultural industry.

When Lord Woolton spoke to the country the other day, he said that he had bought and paid for the meat supply of the country. He did not mean that he had bought home-produced meat; he meant Argentine supplies. It came out how the transaction had been made. The most hopeful part of his statement was that half of the amount had been paid for in cash, as it were, and the other half in Argentine stocks and bonds. That is an indication that, whether we are disposed to give agriculture its place or not, the country after the war will have to do so. That is possibly the idea that lay behind the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, South (Mr. Barnes), that it will pay to prepare the industry for the greater call upon it that is coming after the war—that agriculture should be so organised after the war that it will actually enable this country to face its post-war economic problems overseas. That there will have to be a greater call upon the home production of food after this war, is becoming crystal clear. If the Treasury could tell us what volume of Australian holdings have been sold out to American financiers it would give us a line upon agricultural policy after this war. The realisation of British securities abroad has a very direct bearing on the future of British agriculture after this war. The agriculturist is alive to that. But, up to now, he has a feeling that in this war, under the present Minister, all he is required to do is to fill in the gaps and take advantage of the situation through pressure from the Farmers' Union.

The National Farmers' Union is entitled to the fullest credit: it has its proper place; but it is playing an exaggerated role in connection with policy of the present Minister. It brought down the last Minister, and it may bring him down, too. He should be seeking wider counsel. I suspect that part of his difficulties with the Ministry of Food also comes in that connection. The farmers are asking for certain classes of produce, prices that should not be paid. There is not a farmer to-day but who really believes in his bones that he could make agriculture pay at present prices if the county committees would leave him alone, and not bother him about ploughing up land which he does not want to plough up. That is the view of a man writing to the "Farmers' Weekly": I feel sick when I read in your paper about lack of profits for the poor farmers. … If they are not capable of making good profits now it is time they went out of business. That is what the Ministry of Food is telling the Ministry of Agriculture to-day: A boy could make profits to-day if he had a reasonable amount of common sense. I know. I am a farmer, and when I look at that business I am glad of it. The prices are not the problem.

Mr. De la Bère

Was not that just a piece of Government propaganda of which we have had too much lately? I do not think that that was a genuine letter at all.

Mr. Morgan

That may be; I cannot say. I do not know what tricks they get up to. But prices are not the real problem of agriculture to-day, and every farmer knows it. Farmers are fighting, naturally, for the best prices they can get and we ought to realise it. In certain directions they are getting more than fair prices, but let us be fair to the industry. They are really fighting for a permanent place for this industry in the economic life of the country. I believe that at this moment they are being merely appease[...] That is the Minister's danger. He is engaged upon an appeasement policy with regard to the farming industry, but there is no need for appeasement. The farming industry is as ready as any other section of the community to be told what to do, and to be given reasons why they should retract in certain directions, even though in that direction lay more profits. What does it matter to the Ministry of Food how much barley the farmer grows and sells to the brewer at 112s. a quarter? The Ministry of Food, being charged with the food supply of the country, are not directly concerned in the transaction. It has only a psychological value to them.

But the Ministry of Food are very seriously concerned with the milk situation. The outlook for the dairy farmer is not half as favourable as the outlook for the barley grower, and that ought not to be the case in war-time. Tied up with that is the problem in thousands of villages, including villages with evacuees, that they cannot get milk. A letter was handed to me this morning saying, "We cannot buy milk in our own village because it is not there." I wish to emphasise that the Ministry of Food ought not to be posed as antagonistic to the farming industry, which ought not to be jockeyed into that position. The Ministry of Food has probably tried to impose upon the farming industry a kind of food policy that it wants for war-time in this country. The farming industry ought to know what that policy really is, and the indictment of the Minister of Agriculture to-day is that the farmers do not really know it and do not know what to do with the next 2,000,000 acres. The industry are being asked to grow another 180,000 acres of potatoes. It is understood that that has been given as an instruction from the Ministry of Food, and that the potatoes will be bought. I saw a leading article in a farming paper which said, "Ware potatoes" "Ware" is a well known trade term but used in this connection to convey the idea of caution. The farming industry have not sold anything like the number of potatoes they would like of this season's crop, even though the prices are fixed and maximised. The question is, Who is to have the potatoes? The industry would like to know whether the Minister has cleared up that little problem with the Ministry of Food.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Ernest Brown)

That has been done, certainly.

Mr. Morgan

It should be made clear that the farmer will not be made to take uneconomic prices at the end of the season.

Mr. Brown

He has been told.

Mr. Morgan

If the industry have been told, they have been told in terms that they do not understand, because uncertainty about the potato position is still abounding, and it ought to be cleared up finally. Broadly, the food policy of the Government with regard to agriculture in war-time is not understood by the industry. The farmers are using a very effective instrument to extract prices all along the line that will satisfy them as general farmers, but I am in doubt personally whether that is meeting the food position as a whole. The egg is 4d., which is the controlled price, but if the egg were free from control, we should see the price somewhere about 7d. to 8d. With the price of onions at 10d., the Minister ought to be telling the country to-day his vegetable policy. We have brought the price down by pressure to 4½d. The onion is only an indicator of the general lopsidedness of the agricultural development in war-time in this country. We ought not, within two months of the summer, to be facing a shortage of winter vegetables, like carrots, onions, beet and the rest. I am not so sure that the Minister did not say "Rubbish" under his breath. If it is rubbish, he ought to tell us what steps he has taken to see that it does not happen next winter, because this is absolutely cognate and, I have no doubt, very much the concern of the Ministry of Food. We shall have to go to Egypt to obtain onions to meet an agricultural deficiency here. We can produce onions better than any other country in the world. That is an indication that we have not yet settled our food policy.

Mr. Hudson

With regard to the onion, I said that there were a great number of things for which I was not responsible. The onion growers were asked to increase their acreage, and they did. The carrot growers were asked to increase their acreage, and they did. But no one could foresee then that practically the whole of our overseas trade in vegetables would be cut off. This is one of the hazards of war. Complete arrangements are being made for next year. The detailed schemes are being worked out, and they will be published in plenty of time.

Mr. Morgan

I accept the intervention of the Minister, because I have drawn from him the statement as I want it. That was, that he has accepted the predicament as a challange that is to be met.

Mr. Hudson

Of course.

Mr. Morgan

It is that for which I was asking, but when he muttered "Rubbish" under his breath, I was compelled to press him further. Therefore I have done no wrong in pressing the point. It is of very serious moment to women that at the beginning of the winter season the matter is going to be particularly difficult, and, therefore, I have obtained a declaration that he has the matter in hand and that he is now going to face it. It is a statement which will stand, and it will, I take it, be examined as time goes on to see whether it is, in fact, being fulfilled. With eggs and onions under controlled prices—and I want to be perfectly fair—incidentally the grower of onions does not fail to notice that his price is being fixed at something like 2.9d. per pound, while the selling price is to be 4½d. It is that disparity in the distributive margins, as in the case of onions, that is one of the irritations from which the grower suffers. But I am still not satisfied that we have at this stage of the war yet provided the agricultural industry with a firm, declared, settled policy for food development in war-time and that its position after this war will be assured and that it will take its rightful place. I said at the beginning, what I feel now, that the Minister, in his rather complacent speech, gave no feeling that agriculture has reached at this late stage in the war a position of permanency as far as the food supply is concerned. We were left with the feeling that the agricultural industry is being developed incidentally in the major attack upon the food position, and that is not what is desired by the industry as a whole. It wants its place, and it wants its relations with the consumer more established so that it can hold its place after this war is over.

Sir Dymoke White (Fareham)

I crave the indulgence of the House in addressing it for the first time. I shall not keep the House very long, but I would like, first of all, to join issue with the last speaker on this question of grassland. having had practical experience in my constituency. The first time round, if I may so put it, we all know that grass was obtained on a voluntary basis, and I maintain that as a result of the field-to-field survey we shall have no difficulty at all in obtaining the extra grassland required for the Minister's programme. The last speaker was rather afraid that when we had ploughed up the grassland we should not know what to do with it, but if the Government cannot find a use for it, I am sure that the result of ploughing up and reseeding will benefit the agricultural community for many years to come. I know personally of acres and acres of worn-out grassland—and I have no doubt that the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. J. Morgan) has the same experience—which is crying out to be ploughed, cultivated and reseeded.

I have two suggestions to make before I sit down, and one is that we are, from the pig-feeding point of view, neglecting a great source of foodstuffs in the acorn crop. There has been an absolutely bumper crop this year, and I am quite sure that if farmers took the hint, they would be able to get plenty of school children to pick tip the acorns and eke out the somewhat meagre supplies available for pig food. My second suggestion to the Minister is on the point of saving labour. Up and down the country threshing machines are not fitted with what is known as self-feeders, and that means an extra man on the machine. If the Minister, through the county committees, can persuade or compel threshing machine makers to fit self-feeders, we shall save a great deal of labour throughout the coming winter.

Colonel Sir Edward Ruggles-Brise (Maldon)

I am sure that the House has listened with interest to the speech which the hon. Member has just delivered, and he deserves to be congratulated, not only upon the good common sense of the points which he laid before the House, but also for another reason upon which so few hon. Members are able to be congratulated, namely, brevity. I am sure hon. Members will hope to hear his speeches on future occasions, if only for that reason, in spite of the words of wisdom which I have no doubt he will always address to the House.

We have had a speech from the Minister to-day, and he has told us that he did not find himself able, in the time at his disposal, to cover the whole field of agriculture or the many different points about which it is possible to differ in opinion and argue. But he did open his speech by telling the House that very considerable success had attended the first agricultural year of the war, and I feel quite certain that the House will join with the Minister in the congratulations and thanks which he offered both to the farmers and to farm workers who made this result possible. I think the House, too, would wish that some tribute should be paid to those who planned the campaign before the outbreak of the war. The question which lies before the House is: Shall we be able to keep it up? That is really the point. Two million acres have been ploughed up, and 2,000,000 more are to be ploughed up. That might be all right if we knew that the war would end at a certain time, bet, of course, we do not, and, therefore, we must take a long view of the problem to ensure that should this war go on longer than we anticipate, the country will not find its fields exhausted and unable to make a response to the need of meeting the supply of food.

It is, therefore, to the question of the fertility of the soil that I invite the attention of the House for a few moments. The Minister informed the House that there had been an abnormally large sale of cattle during this autumn, which he attributed to the fact that there was a shortage of grass owing to the drought, with the result that farmers were compelled, through lack of food, to place their cattle on the market irrespective of the fact that at that particular moment the market was not in need of beef. We know that in addition to that there has been a progressive reduction going on for months past in the number of pigs. Therefore, we are faced with this position: We are reducing our cattle and our pigs simultaneously, in spite of the fact that at the last census of livestock a satisfactory figure was shown. I do, however, want to point to the danger of getting too great a further decrease either in our cattle or pig population. I am perfectly certain that if we reduce our livestock population further, we shall be running a great risk of losing the fertility of the soil of our country.

I have a fear in my mind that, despite pressure on the part of the Government to induce farmers to reduce their pig population, there is another factor which has been inducing the increased sales. I believe that the farmer, faced with the increased costs of production which started from July last, has been compelled in many cases to sell both livestock and pigs more freely than he would otherwise have done simply in order to enable himself to meet his cash obligations. That leads me to the whole question of credit for the industry. The Minister spent some little time in his speech discussing this question of credit, and I suppose it is common ground that the long depression which has existed in the agricultural sphere since the last war has, in the main, exhausted the farmer's working capital. The farmer has been forced to rely on such credit as he could find. Now there are many sources of credit open to him—banks, corn merchants, seedsmen, dealers in stock and many others—but this is the point I wish to make: It is often forgotten that farming on credit, which is all but universal, increases the cost of production. I was rather surprised to hear my right hon. Friend speak so lightly of a matter of one or two per cent. more or less in the amount charged to farmers by bankers on loans or overdrafts. I think the drag of interest payments on borrowed money weighs very heavily on the fanning community at this time and is one of the reasons which compel them to ask for a higher range of prices to meet their general costs of production into which these increased charges must fall.

I should like to say a word or two more about the whole question of credits in connection with agriculture. Short-term credit is a useful commercial instrument when employed for a definite transaction which has finality to it. If you see a chance of making a profit on some transaction and you are not able to finance it yourself, you go to a bank for so much money for so long, with the almost certainty that at the end of the time you will have completed the transaction and will be able to repay the bank, and the interest on the short-term loan is not a matter of much seriousness. But, unfortunately, in view of the fact that the working capital of the agricultural community has long since vanished, farmers are borrowing to meet almost the whole of the working capital that they have lost in past years. Farming is a long-term business, but it cannot afford to farm on long-term credit, and it will bring the industry down in the end. It is full of unknown hazards both of seasons and of markets. It is too little realised that, when a farmer is working on a large sum of borrowed capital, in little more than 10 years the amount borrowed has doubled itself. The operation of compound interest is a deadly one for the borrower and a goldmine for the lender. Therefore, while credit is a necessary evil in view of the depletion of the farmers' capital resources, I strongly deprecate the invitation of the Government, which has been repeatedly made to farmers of late, to have further resort to the banks. The Government have taken control of the agricultural industry at every point. They call for heroic efforts to produce more food. They raise the cost of production artificially, rightly or wrongly. They control the sale of all agricultural produce. They fix the price at which the produce is to be sold and, through the operation of the county war executive committees, whether we like it or not, we are farmed from Whitehall. If the Government consider that measures taken to control the industry are necessary to the winning of the war, well and good. I take no exception to anything that they may have done in that way. But, when a Government has taken complete control of an industry, it cannot absolve itself from the responsibility of financing that industry, if necessary.

There is, in my view, no need for the Government to consider embarking on a tremendous loan of several millions to the farming community. I do not think it is necessary to raise a loan at all. I do not think the industry wants to be financed, or should be financed, by way of loan. I believe the Government have a much more simple instrument in their hands for the direct financing of the agricultural industry. All that is required is the fair fixing of prices at a level which will be reasonably remunerative to the producer. If there is confidence that over the whole range of these controlled products there is a reasonable and fair price, I believe credit will flow into the industry anyhow. I have heard it said by Government spokesmen, "We have given a global increase in prices which covers the global increase in the cost of production." I do not think that is fair to the individual farmer. The price for this or that commodity, it is true, may be satisfactory, but the farmer whose land does not happen to be suitable for the growing of this or that particularly favoured crop is left high and dry and is faced with enhanced costs of production.

I believe that, generally, there is ground for complaint as regards the range of prices, and I think the Government will find that in due course they may have to consider again whether those prices should not be advanced. If you have an industry controlled by the Government, say, making munitions, armaments or ships necessary to the prosecution of the war, they surely do not expect manufacturers operating under control to produce any one single item except at a reasonable profit. Why should a farmer have to produce any single item unless he is given a price which is reasonably remunerative? The hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. J. Morgan) complained that in the ploughing-up campaign the price had to be increased to meet the capital cost of the ploughing up. Does he suggest that, when a shadow aeroplane factory or a new munitions factory has had to be put up, there should be nothing added in the price level of the items produced to the amortisation of the cost of building and equipping the factory?

Mr. J. Morgan

The analogy is not applicable, because obviously the munitions factory is for war time only. Ploughing up is a long-term operation and should be treated on quite a different footing.

Sir E. Ruggles-Brise

I hope that the hon. Member may be right when he says that the ploughing up is to be part of a long-term policy; but I think he has forgotten his history and the fact that a short while ago, 20 years ago, we had a great ploughing-up campaign. Agriculture then was going to be so wonderful, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) was telling us how wonderful the world was going to be. But what, in fact, happened? Was there a long-term policy? There was not, and there is no guarantee that the land which is being brought under the plough at this great expense is not going to drift back again into grass. Therefore, I think I am right in drawing the analogy between the amortisation of factory costs and the costs of these farming operations. It is certain that an adequate price level will unlock the flow of all healthy credit, whereas inadequate prices will jam the flow of credit and long-term production which the nation requires and which we must have. Any doubt as to whether the price level has been fairly fixed will, for certain, hinder production.

In the concluding passage of the speech of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, he alluded to the future of the industry. I am bound to say that I was disappointed that he dismissed the future almost in a sentence. I agree that anyone who stands, to-day, in this House and is bold enough to prophesy what the future will hold in store for any of us is a bold man, but when you are dealing with a long-term industry like agriculture, and when you are calling upon it to make great superhuman efforts in the time of the nation's need, it must have a great effect on the future wellbeing or otherwise of the nation's industry. Therefore, I think it is germane in any agricultural discussion to cast our eyes upon the future. For a minute or two I should like to argue the case in favour of thought being given now to the future of agriculture, not from the point of view of agriculture itself, but entirely from the national point of view.

Our exchange position to-day is, of course, none too good. But what our exchange position will be like when this war is over it is very difficult to say. Money will probably be scarce. I think one is on safe ground when one hazards that at the end of this war it will be vitally necessary for us to produce everything that we can of everything for the simple reason that we shall not have the exchange wherewith to pay for imports from anywhere. If that is so—and I am arguing from the national point of view—it is essential, in the national interest, that the nation should plan for the future of agriculture now, so that we can cut down our imports after the war and save expense. I will not elaborate that point any further, although it is a point which I trust the Government have in hand. In spite of the somewhat short length of time devoted in the speech of my right hon. Friend to the future of agriculture, I hope the Government have it well in mind.

I have one word of criticism to make before I sit down. When speaking of the future, hints have been dropped by Government spokesmen of this nature. They have pointed to the enormous accumulation of foodstuffs which is going on in several Dominions and foreign countries at this moment, and they say, in so many words, to the farmers, "Now you be good boys. Look at the big stick there is in the cupboard. If you do not behave, what the Government will have to do is to turn on the tap at the end of the war and let the foreign and Dominion surpluses flood in here and break you." That is not the way to get the good will of the farming community, and I am very sorry that there should be indications that that line of argument is being adopted. It will not achieve results. I believe that the farmers, as a community, are, as patriotic as any class in the country, and I do not think that will be challenged. They have responded nobly to the calls made upon them, they are responding, and they will continue to respond, to any call which may be made upon them in the interests of the nation. They are fully aware of the important place which their industry takes in this time of great national crisis. They will, I believe, respond willingly again to words of encouragement, such as those which the Prime Minister used in his recent letter to the President of the National Farmers' Union, when he said to the farmers of this country, "You are fighting in the front line of freedom."

Mr. Loftus (Lowestoft)

I listened with great interest to the speech made by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Maldon (Sir E. Ruggles-Brise) and the comments he made, especially upon prices and fertility, upon which I should like to make a few remarks. I also listened to the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. J. Morgan), and I thoroughly disagreed with certain of his remarks, which I will deal with later. First of all, I should like to deal with one subject about which I have had a considerable amount of correspondence, both with the Ministry of Agriculture and with the Ministry of Food—and that is the position of the market gardener. I have had extremely distressing cases, but I would not bring two, three or a dozen distressing cases before the House in time of war unless I felt that they were typical of tens of thousands of others. I believe that these cases are a symptom disclosing an astonishingly bad state of affairs and involving an enormous waste of foodstuffs. I will give the House one of the cases, which is that of a market gardener who, for over 20 years, has been running a small market garden half-way between Lowestoft and Southwold. He had been successful, but now he is ruined. He has given notice that he is giving up his market garden. His savings are exhausted, and he is applying for unemployment benefit. He asked me a month or so ago to go and see his market garden. There were 7,000 lettuces, but these lettuces were wasted because he could not sell them. He had over 5,000 excellent cabbages, but they were an utter waste. He had many hundredweights of beans and so on, but could not sell them. That again meant waste of food at a time when we are called on to save it.

It may be said that something could have been done by the National Farmers' Union. I approached them, and they said they would try to get the crops sold. They sent someone to inspect the garden, and he said it was in perfect condition and that he had never seen better cabbages. The Union, however, could not sell the crops. I know another case of a small market gardener who, fortunately, has another business. I asked him what he had done with his crops, and he said they had gone to waste because he could not sell them. He used to dispose of his produce to Lowestoft, Yarmouth and other resorts. I asked him what happened in the last war, and he said it was easy then, for he went to the local Army canteens, which bought all his vegetables and food. I suggested that he should try that again, but he said the buying was all centralised now through the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes. They are the power which have caused this colossal waste of food by not purchasing from the local market gardeners. I have heard of small men being prosecuted for wasting food. Someone is responsible for this colossal waste, and whoever is responsible should be exposed and, if possible, prosecuted.

I turn to the subject of prices. To the hon. Member for Doncaster the National Farmers' Union is rather like King Charles's head. He drew a picture of the Union dictating to the Minister exorbitant prices to cover certain capital outlay. I can assure the hon. Member that his picture is wrong. I have a letter in my pocket from the National Farmers' Union in my county protesting strongly against the prices fixed by the Minister as being quite inadequate. The fixing of prices is a difficult thing in agriculture, because it is a chancy thing, and while you can fix a price which would be adequate to the farmer in a normal year, the same price might by a twist of the season mean a heavy loss. The hon. Member for Doncaster mentioned farmers selling barley at 110s. and so on. Does he realise that the average farmer in East Anglia has only a 40 to 45 per cent. yield, and that much of it is not a good crop, so that he is receiving far less money per acre, though the prices are higher, than he did last year? I feel that prices will again have to be carefully gone into by the Ministry of Agriculture with a view to ensuring that there is really adequate cover for the increased labour costs and difficulties of farmers to-day.

I was glad that the hon. and gallant Member for Maldon mentioned the fertility of the soil. The Minister pointed out today that the sale of cattle, pigs and sheep had enormously increased. He said that recently 180,000 more sheep had been sold than in the corresponding period last year. I view that with concern, because the maintenance of adequate livestock, especially of sheep, in the Eastern Counties is essential for the fertility of the soil. If we cannot maintain the stock, fertility will decline. I view with concern the heavy decrease which I see in the famous sheep flocks of Suffolk, because folded sheep are necessary for the fertility of the land. I sometimes wonder whether it is not possible that the Ministry of Agriculture, urged by the Ministry of Food, are not concentrating too much on war diet without considering the effect on the land. Sir John Orr has written a remarkable book on feeding in war-time, and it contains admirable advice as to the best kind of diet and as to utilising the land in the best way. We must not, however, think only of war diet to the exclusion of considerations of the future of our soil and the preservation of its fertility. Sir John Orr rightly carries immense weight with the Ministry of Food and the Ministry of Agriculture, but I hope that Sir George Stapledon may carry equal weight. I hope that Sir John Orr will be regarded as an authority on the question of war diet and Sir George Stapledon as an authority on the question of so arranging our diet as to increase rather than diminish the fertility of the soil.

With regard to cash and credit for farmers, I was unfortunately late and did not hear the opening remarks of the Minister. I feel that the cash and credit position of the farmers will have to be dealt with in a far more drastic way than has been proposed. I have heard this morning of two good farmers leaving their farms simply owing to inadequate capital. There are many dangers due to lack of working capital. I would point out one. My right hon. Friend rightly warned the farmers about standing off agricultural labourers and pointed out that if they stand these men off for a long period, they inevitably drift away from the land to other industries. I assure my right hon. Friend, however, that there are many farmers who are so hard up for working capital, and who have been selling their beasts simply to get money to carry on, and who will stand off their men next month, not because they wish to do so, bat because they simply have not the cash to pay the wages. I know the right hon. Gentleman takes this matter very seriously, and I should like him to get some travelling investigators to find out where the shoe pinches and take steps, if possible, to provide many good farmers with the necessary working capital.

I would end by saying that I was pleased to hear my right hon. Friend say that in his spare time—he cannot have a great deal of it—he is thinking hard about the future of British agriculture. There is a great deal to think about, and I would venture to give him one subject only for meditation. After the war, where is the capital to come from to put the agricultural land of England, the farm buildings, farm houses and cottages in proper condition; in short, to get the whole agricultural industry back to the condition in which it was 70 or 80 years ago, making it what is was then, a model to the world, with the best equipped and the best cultivated land anywhere? To do that will involve an expenditure not of a few millions but of hundreds of millions. That is the problem we shall have to face after the war. It is a problem involving all kinds of considerations like land tenure, and I would commend that as the subject of meditation by my right hon. Friend in his spare time.

Sir Joseph Lamb (Stone)

I listened with very great interest to the report which the Minister gave of agricultural production in the past year, and when we realise that it is an interim report on a programme which will have to be continued, we must agree that it is a very satisfactory one. When I say satisfactory it must be remembered that no report is as satisfactory as one would like, but his report was one which, in the circumstances, can be received with very great satisfaction not only by himself but by the community as a whole. He made reference to expert advice and the readiness with which farmers are receiving it. I was glad to hear that, because it is a great advantage to farmers to have expert advice. I would assure him that it is not only just now that they have been willing to listen to it. It was my experience as the representative of one of the agricultural colleges—I attended all its annual demonstrations for many years —that the number of farmers who went to those demonstrations to see the experiments and hear the advice which was given was very considerable.

Mr. Hudson

That is why Staffordshire farmers are so good.

Sir J. Lamb

I am much obliged for that compliment to my own county. Farmers have very much appreciated the assistance which they have received in the past. I do not want to be ungenerous after that very kind remark from my right hon. Friend, but some of those who have been giving advice in the past and are doing so at present would not suffer any injury by tackling conditions in practice, because advice is always better when it comes from an individual who is speaking about practical conditions rather than about theoretical conceptions. I do not regret having to repeat a statement which I have made before in the House, and that is that the crux of production is prices—irrespective of what the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. J. Morgan) has said. He said that to-day some prices are too high, but I notice that he did not say which prices or whether he or his friends are producers of those particular articles. He did mention barley, and the price which is being given by brewers, but brewers do not take all the barley which is grown. I do not know of any prices which are too high. I submit that the price to be received for any article must be an economical price. I know of no industry which can continue if the price of the article it produces is uneconomic, unless it happens to be an industry which is able to sell its main product at an uneconomic price because of the large sums which it receives for residuals, and that is not the case in agriculture.

It has been said before, and no doubt it will be contended again, that though the price received must be an economic one, it must be fixed by a system of costings. In general I agree, but the costings system can be applied in other industries much better than in farming. Farming costs are very difficult, and I hope the Ministry, in fixing prices, will not rely too much upon costings which have been made in the past on large, well-organised farms. I do not say that farms should not be well organised and well equipped, but we have to take things as they are, and owing to the adverse conditions under which agriculture has been working there are many farms which are neither well equipped nor, perhaps, managed as well as they should be, owing to the conditions which have prevailed for so long. Another point is that the vast majority of our farms are not large farms, but small farms which can only be made to pay by inordinate sacrifices on the part of their occupiers. These men and their families on those small farms work from morn till night—all hours—and for pay which no employé would accept. Consequently, in costings taken on those small farms there should be some allowance for the excessive contribution which is made by the occupier and his family.

I was rather surprised to hear the castigation which the hon. Member for Doncaster gave the National Farmers' Union. I should have thought that he would have been a champion of all unions as being the authentic bodies to negotiate with Government Departments—

Mr. J. Morgan

I agree.

Sir J. Lamb

Then I cannot see the justification for those remarks.

Mr. Morgan

—but not to run a Government Department.

Sir J. Lamb

I never knew of one which did run a Government Department, and if he says that the National Farmers' Union run the Ministry of Agriculture, I am sure the best of replies will come from the Front Bench. I think it is absolutely essential that all employés should be in unions, and I have said so many times. It is the only way by which they can get adequate wages and proper conditions, and the unions are the only people to put forward their applications to the various Departments. In the case of the employers, their union ought to be there to discuss on their behalf the question of the ability to pay agricultural wages, because that is what it really comes down to. We should appreciate the service which the National Farmers' Union has rendered. The great difficulty with regard to prices is the instability of the industry—I am not now using the term "instability" as it is sometimes applied to the industry, but to the instability of the conditions which arise which are outside the control of the individuals engaged in the industry. That fact makes it very difficult to arrive at economic prices. I should like to refer with satisfaction to the fact that the Minister has been instrumental in obtaining from other Departments stabilisation in the prices of feeding-stuffs, fertilisers, labour and rents. These will be advantages to farmers, because they feature very largely in the cost of production. It is only fair, if you have control over the prices, that you should have control also over those things which relate so very largely to the cost of production.

There is another point which I hope the Minister will take into consideration. He will have to take very great care with regard to the regulation of supplies. There is still a large proportion of out foodstuffs that has to be imported. The way in which these foodstuffs are released to the public at seasons when it is essential that our own production should be released is very important, in the interests not only of the public but of economy. There are certain seasons of the year when the products of our farms have to come upon the market and when they are in the best condition. If they are retained upon the farms, they lose condition. Consequently, from the economic point of view, it is essential that the market should be supplied at the right time, but very great care should be exercised in the way in which all these supplies are distributed. The Ministry has found difficulty; there are occasions when, because of the effects of the war and perhaps for other reasons which I think I had better not specify, it is essential that they should deal with certain commodities. These operations should be conducted as carefully as possible, in order to see that they are not detrimental to the home supplies.

In regard to vegetables and things that have been referred to, I can assure the Minister that maldistribution or non-marketing has been very serious. Not only the market gardener but the farmer who has produced largely market garden products, and also some allotment holders, have found that they have not been able satisfactorily to deal, in either one way or the other, with the supplies which they have had. I am aware that some of the difficulty has been caused by certain individuals in the camps, who have said that it was not as easy for them to deal with the home-produced articles, as presented to them, as with some of the imported articles. Perhaps it would have been easier if the home-produced articles had been canned instead of being ordinary vegetables which had to be prepared before being cooked. These questions will have to be taken up very seriously with the Department, because, in the national interest, it is desirable that fresh food should be not only produced but consumed, and not wasted. I hope that the Minister will not lose sight of what is generally called the Sydney Resolution, in regard to organisation, not only now but in the future, between food produced in our own country and that produced in the Dominions and imported here.

I should like to add a word with regard to the banks and to give credit to them for what they have done. I am not one of those who blame the banks. Many farmers have received great consideration from the banks. The condition in which agriculture as a whole was did not enable the banks to give farmers the credit for which they were sometimes asked. One of the curses of this country has been too much credit, not only in agriculture but in many other things. People have been induced to hang weights around their necks from which they could never release themselves, but which they could not carry. In regard to rent collecting, this question is very largely one of ability to repay. There are farmers who will not ask for credit which they know they could very well do with, simply because they are honest men and do not see their ability to repay. This question of credit is linked with the condition of agriculture, which should enable men who receive credit to have a reasonable opportunity to repay in the future. With regard to machines for threshing, I can assure the Minister that there are small farms in hilly districts where no machines exist. In the past these farmers have never done any threshing and consequently there are no machines available. The difficulty of importing machines is that a one-day operation is much more expensive than when the threshers can sit down to work for a whole week. Special consideration ought to be given to small men in this matter.

The Minister did not say anything about war insurance, and I do not know whether I shall be in order if I say much about it. I hope that, in the Bill, consideration will be given—but I perceive that I must not go any further with this point at this stage, although I very nearly got out what I wanted to say. I will not say any more about it, except to reiterate the hope which the Minister expressed that the country will not forget agriculture as it did after the last war; but that is a matter of educating not agriculture but the public.

The distribution of agricultural products in this country is at present, and always has been, a very costly and unsatisfactory business, and I hope that particular consideration will be given to it because it has a great bearing upon the prices which will be asked of the public in future for articles grown in this country. I do not know whether I ought to say this, but I believe that some arrangement will have to be made, with regard to that proportion of the food which is brought into this country from abroad being purchased and charged with a certain bounty to enable the necessary proportion of food to be grown in this country. Something of this kind will have to be given very careful consideration in the future. As soon as we give the farmer the assurance that this matter is receiving genuine consideration by the Government so soon, and not till then, will the farmer be given the necessary feeling of hope to enable him to continue production.

Mr. Robertson (Streatham)

In the absence of their Member I rise to speak on behalf of the farmers of Peebles and Southern Midlothian. I met some of them in Peebles ten days ago, and they told me of their problems. They are mostly hill farmers, compelled to plough up their inferior land which in peace time it would not pay to plough. In the national interest they gladly agreed to bring this land to plough, in the belief that the Government would protect them against loss. They had every right to that belief, because they were told that the nation required crops, and they concluded that the nation's representatives would see that they got fair and profitable prices. The prices recently announced by the Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Food are quite inadequate for the Scots hill farmer. They may be fair for the farmers in rich valleys or fertile flat lands, but the cost of ploughing up hill lands is high. Ploughing can only be done downhill; transport costs to these hills for manures, fertilisers and all other materials are high. On the income side, the return is poor, because the crop yield per acre is low. I did not hear one single grumble about the increased wages the farmer is now compelled to pay. It is realised that the price increases are justified and essential if labour is to be kept on the land.

I did, however, hear serious complaint about the tyranny of a system which compels farmers to produce at a loss. As other speakers have said to-day, many of these men are in debt to the banks. They entered their farms free of debt and with working capital, but years of dumping by foreign and Dominion countries caused losses to be made, cash deficiencies being replaced by loans. As the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. J. Morgan) so clearly said, the Government's policy of expecting a flat rate of prices to cover the cost of ploughing secondary Scots hill land is wrong. These costs are not revenue costs only; they are capital costs which cannot be recovered from the consumer in any one year. I urge the Minister to face the position by assuming all capital costs, and leaving revenue costs and profit to the farmer to be derived from the fixed prices of the Ministry of Food. The ploughing-up campaign is hitting these hill farmers in regard to the sale of their cast ewes and surplus lambs. The demand from graziers is severely curtailed because so much grazing land has been brought to the plough. If these unfinished stocks are dumped on the consumers' market in large quantities at the beginning of winter, butchers and the public may with reason refuse to pay the controlled prices, with resultant loss to the farmer.

I find there is dissatisfaction with the black-face wool prices. I am glad to see that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland is here, because I am sure he is much more familiar with this subject than I am. I have a good deal of diffidence in addressing the House on this matter, and I should not do so were it not for the fact that the Peebles farmers' Member is not able to address the House. I am told that 12½ pence per lb. will not pay. The wool yield per sheep this year is well below normal and all costs are up. The hill farmers are wondering whether the Government really want their wool. They read of large stocks of Dominion wool being stored in the United States of America, probably purchased by Britain to compensate one or more Dominions for the loss of markets due to the war. The Prime Minister's letter to Mr. Peacock of the National Farmers' Union states: The price levels have been fixed for the purpose of securing an increase in some types of production and a decline in others. The Peebles farmers consider that black-face wool must be among the declines. If so, the price of mutton must be increased if the farmer is to go on producing. The State is fully entitled to say that it wants the carcase and not the wool, but it must pay for the sheep. I realise that much has been done for agriculture in recent years in a belated attempt to remedy the appalling neglect of the previous century, but it is not nearly enough. Farming should be our proudest industry, instead of the most forsaken. This truly national Government have it in their power to restore agriculture to its proper place. The demand for the big loaf and other cheap imported foods brought about the ruin of the British farmer. He must be told now that the State requires him in peace as well as in war, and that never again will his markets be fouled by importations in excess of our needs.

Sir Stanley Reed (Aylesbury)

I desire to intervene for only a few minutes, and I hope that I shall be able to follow the example of the hon. Member for Fareham (Sir D. White), who delivered what I believe every hon. Member will agree was a model speech. He said exactly what he had to say; he spoke of nothing that he did not know about; and then he sat down. I think it was most unjust in a speech which contained so much admirable matter for the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Morgan) to say that the speech of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Agriculture was a pedestrian speech. The speech of my right hon. Friend was clear, resolute common sense and practical. It addressed itself severely to the problems of the moment and it visualised the immense problems which lie ahead of us. I welcome in particular what my right hon. Friend said on a matter which has occupied some attention in this House—I am inclined to say which has bemused the House on certain occasions—and that is the question of agricultural credits. I constantly meet farmers in my division, and in the adjoining division, whose Member is on active service, and never on a single occasion have I heard a question raised with regard to the inadequacy of credit for those who are credit-worthy. I speak with some knowledge and experience on this subject because I was one of the founders of an agricultural credit bank in another part of the Empire, and its director for many years. I know only too well that nothing in the long run can be more fatal for the producer, farmer or otherwise, than too easy credit which plunges him into debt and which hangs like a millstone round his neck when the inevitable consequences follow the variation of the economic conditions of the country.

There is no real shortage of credit at the present time. What there is—and it is one of the immense difficulties against which my right hon. Friend has to labour —is a shortage of credit-worthiness in certain classes of the farming community. What I hear from those who are engaged in this actual work is not of a shortage of bona fide credits; but that some farmers are afraid of the risk of plunging themselves more deeply into debt, even if the credit were forthcoming, if a slump comes later. It has been argued that there is an effective economic difference between credit at 4 per cent. and 5 per cent., or 3½ per cent. and 5 per cent. It is nonsense. In these days, when banks have a surplus of assets to put to productive purposes, one can always make a good bargain with a bank and obtain a loan, whether it be 4 per cent. or 2½ per cent. is really immaterial. To say that because the Government borrow at 2½ per cent. the banks can lend at 2½ per cent. is equally beside the mark. Some allowance must be made for bad debts, and I am afraid that the banks have made a lot of bad agricultural debts in the past. I hope that that question has now been settled for all time, at any rate so far as the Minister is concerned.

I would like to endorse what the Minister has justly said with regard to the very great service rendered to the agricultural community and through that community to the nation as a whole by the schools. In my own county we were fortunate in having an organiser who secured the co-operation of the farmers as well as of the schools. At least one of the public schools as well as secondary and elementary schools from urban areas rendered high service and the harvest was got in at no cost. If I may put to the Minister one point which is disturbing the dairy farmers in my area to a very serious extent, it is this. There has been some anxiety at the present price level and its effect on future production. I quote these figures with some reluctance because, not being an expert, I can only repeat figures which are given to me. An important deputation came to me only yesterday and pointed out that the Milk Marketing Board, which possesses figures of unimpeachable accuracy, calculated to decimal points, says that the economic figure is 9d. a gallon, while they are offered 8d. and 7d. What, they asked, was the justification for this departure from the Milk Board's figure? They pointed out that milk production has decreased by approximately 12 per cent. with the result that, overheads being constant, the ½d. margin which they were supposed to receive has disappeared. The hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. J. Morgan) has laid stress on the fact that owing to the nature of the season the harvest has been got in under good conditions. But that was at the price of a decrease in the output of hay and of herbage for feeding-stuffs. Many farmers have already had to draw to a considerable extent on their reserves of feeding-stuffs. With the whole winter before them, they look with some anxiety to the future of milk production and to the effect of this on general farming economy, lest they may be diverted from milk production to other forms of production which have a more immediate profitable return to offer. I should welcome from my right hon. Friend, or whoever winds up this Debate, some contribution towards this difficult problem which is seriously exercising dairy farmers in my area at the present time.

There are other points one might touch upon, but these are questions of detail and I will confine myself to this one question of principle. May I ask my right hon. Friend if he can address himself to this problem: We all recognise that there is a shortage of feeding-stuffs, a shortage which is of great importance to the pig and poultry industries. We recognise also that other essential war commodities must receive priority at the present time. This, however, is within his province: Can he not set afoot some inquiries with a view to making absolutely sure that the available supply of merchant tonnage is being used to the very best advantage, and whether there is not at least some available tonnage which is now being used for naval purposes in excess of reasonable existing naval demands? I know that that is a difficult and rather a subtle point, but all our history in the last war, and I am afraid some of our history in the present war, goes to show that in its passion for the maximum degree of efficiency and safety the Admiralty may be claiming, and withholding from the merchant services, perhaps, an undue proportion of such mercantile tonnage as may be available at the present time. This is rather a vital question for a considerable part of our agricultural economy. Pig and poultry production are two essential units in a balanced agricultural economy. Perhaps some ships could be spared from the heavy—I will not say extravagant—demands for shipping made by the Admiralty in order that they might be diverted to carrying feeding-stuffs which bear such an important relation to our whole agricultural production and economy at the present time.

Sir Ernest Shepperson (Leominster)

I intervene only to express the appreciation with which the agricultural community will receive the information, which the Minister has given this afternoon, that there will be an adequate supply of artificial fertilisers. I would remind him that with the ploughing-up of grass and the shortage of cattle and of pigs, there will be less farmyard manure available. Because of that shortage of farmyard manure, it will only be possible to keep up the fertility of the land by means of artificial fertilisers. I was therefore very pleased to hear the right hon. Gentleman say that there would be an adequate quantity. But I do ask the Minister to see that there will be a fair distribution of the quantity which will be available among all those who need it, and that there will not be a great deal given to some and very little to others.

One other point upon which I wish to touch is the question of agricultural labour, and whether there will be sufficient of it. A great deal of grass is being ploughed up in the present campaign; arable acreage is being increased and the pressure is also being exercised by the Ministry with a view to increasing the potato acreage. Arable land requires a great deal more labour than grass land, and therefore, when grass-land is ploughed up and arable land increased, the normal supply of agricultural labour will not be sufficient to meet the abnormal demand. So I ask the Ministry to consider the possibility, in the future, of making sufficient agricultural labour available to meet the demand which will be made upon it. The Minister has, I know, referred to available sources of labour—the Women's Land Army, public schools and so on. But there are practical difficulties regarding the billeting of this labour. At the present time, all our country villages have evacuees from London and the large cities, and all the available space is being used for these evacuees. There is likely, therefore, to be a shortage of billeting accommodation for the members of the Women's Land Army, public school and other schoolboy labour. I ask the Minister to bear that point in mind in readiness for the next harvest and potato-picking time.

There is only one other matter to which I wish to refer. The Minister has mentioned the price levels and cost of production of agricultural products. I want him to bear in mind what is going to happen to agriculture in the future. We are now, in the present ploughing-up campaign, using up the accumulated reserve capital of the land and converting it into crops. The grassland has been many, many years accumulating a reserve of fertility. We are now cashing-in on that reserve fertility. Afterwards, agriculture, having cashed in, will have lost that fertility, and the agriculturist will be left with his land denuded of the fertility that was previously there. Today the farmer is cashing-in on that stored-up fertility, and the very heavy Income Tax and E.P.T. will take a large part of tine benefits accruing from it. Is the farmer to be left, at the end of the period, with his land denuded of its fertility and without any means of meeting the position? That is one of the questions which I will ask the Minister to face when he is considering the future of British agriculture. I, as an agriculturist, want to assure him that we are determined as agriculturists to do our best to produce what is required with no consideration of costs or of getting money. We want to produce food for the people, especially at the present time. We are trying to do it. I ask that when the time comes some consideration should be given to the agriculturists, who are trying to do their bit in this time of national difficulties.

Mr. De la Bère (Evesham)

These are not days in which to mince words or curry favour or pay compliments. I shall not do any of those things. I want to address myself more particularly to that aspect of agricultural problems to which I have devoted great attention, agricultural credits. I listened with rapt attention to all the Minister had to say, and I welcome the remarks that he made about the liaison officers of the banks. I want to be absolutely fair. I think that that was a step forward—though it is not everything that is wanted—because it establishes between the agricultural community and the banks a liaison which for a long time has been wanted. We may, as a result, get the relationship which is required. I know that the Minister of Agriculture will agree with me. But this does not go far enough. The questions of credits and of working capital are very difficult. I think that the Minister believes that the more important of the two is that of additional working capital. I believe that that is right. No one will deny that the agricultural community are short of working capital. To put that right, we need a complete alteration in the whole financial structure of agriculture. Nothing has been done for years, although, as I said the other day, the matter has been raised in the House of Commons over and over and over again. The reason is that the banks do not want to make the concession.

I was amazed when the Minister told us this morning that there was not a great deal in this business of 3 per cent. or 5 per cent., because in the case of a man who borrowed £100 there was a difference of only £2. The same argument could be used in the case of the small man investing in Government securities. It could be said that it does not matter if the Government pay 1 per cent. or 3 per cent., because the small investor, investing £100, would lose only £2 at the lower rate. But the Government would score enormously in the aggregate. The banks want a rate of 5 per cent. because, as a result, they score enormously in the aggregate. With great difficulty, this year I obtained from the Chancellor of the Exchequer information as to the amount outstanding from the agricultural community to the banks. The amount was £53,000,000. The bulk of that was borrowed at 5 per cent. We find, therefore, that the agricultural community are paying approximately £2,500,000 a year to the banks for money borrowed in the past. These moneys have not been borrowed in the last few months; if one goes back over the last five years, one finds that the amount lent by the banks has always been in the neighbourhood of £53,000,000. Therefore, for five years or more the banks have been getting a very large gross revenue from the money borrowed by the agricultural community. That cannot be tolerated to-day, because the agricultural community are very short of working capital. If the banks reduced the interest from 5 per cent. to 3 per cent. the agricultural community would gain approximately £1,000,000 a year. There is no reason why the banks should not do so. But they will not.

I have tackled not only my right hon. Friend here, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on this matter. I have been to the Treasury about it. I received from the Treasury, as I always do, the utmost courtesy. But there the matter ends. No real attempt is made to compel the banks, in the national interest, to alter the rate of interest which they are charging to the agricultural borrowers. Until that is done I do not see how we can claim that we are doing, as the Prime Minister would wish us to do, everything possible to obtain all that we can from the land. I do not believe that it is intended to do anything further. I believe that it is part of the system to which we are wedded, to go along as we are doing. We are not earnest over this. I applauded the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. J. Morgan) just now when he said that a great many people felt that the Ministry of Food did not want more to be produced at home, and that they preferred to rely on shipments from abroad, which they believed could be convoyed. But it is a strange state of affairs. We have the Prime Minister urging that we should grow all we can, the Minister of Agriculture supporting him, and the Minister of Food thinking that that is all very wearying and rather a bore. That sort of thing is very alarming. The agricultural community have lost faith in these promises.

Mr. J. Morgan

I did not say that. I said that an impression of that sort had been created in the industry. That is rather a different thing.

Mr. De la Bère

The hon. Member is no doubt correct—the impression has been created. It does not matter, however, whether that is 100 per cent. correct or only an impression. That impression is very widespread. The farming community believes that that is the policy of the Food Ministry, and just as much harm is done whether it is 100 per cent. true or only 50 per cent. true. There is no doubt that there is a great deal of truth in it. At any rate, the impression is there, and until we grapple with this thing we shall do no good at all. The only approach is through the Prime Minister and the War Cabinet. I admire the Prime Minister; I am not going to say anything critical or derogatory about him. But the Prime Minister perhaps could be more easily persuaded if he had not so many people around him whose advice cannot be regarded as sound. It is a pity that there is no one in the War Cabinet with real knowledge of the agricultural problems of the country. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Sir S. Hoare) was chairman of the Cabinet committee dealing with agriculture I had the matter out with him, with some heat, on the Floor of the House. The right hon. Member for Chelsea had been chairman of that committee for some months, and nothing had been done. The same position exists to-day. The chairman of the Cabinet committee dealing with agriculture has no knowledge of agriculture, and the committee is really not playing a part at all. It is a dummy committee, giving out eyewash, to make people believe that the War Cabinet are dealing with agriculture. They are doing nothing of the sort.

What can agriculture do about it? My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture undoubtedly has a very big future. He will go far, and will perhaps hold the highest office in the land some day. He probably feels that he does not want to be held back by this office, which has only held down everybody who has filled it. I do not know whether that is really how he feels, but the office pulled down his predecessor, and it pulled down the man who held it before that. It was through no fault of their own. The fault lies in that extraordinary power which is behind, and which really directs this country, and which we in this House of Commons cannot grapple with. It is impossible for us to grapple with the real power directing this country. I do not flatter myself, I know that nothing I say to-day will make any difference; but, as time goes on and people's minds become more acute and alert, the real feeling of the middle-class masses will emerge.

The only thing that can really put this country right is that, instead of this eyewash, which has been put up day after day and year after year, some really constructive policy shall be put forward. I want to know from the Minister of Agriculture whether we are really to suppose that the maximum effort on the part of the farmers is necessary to assist the war requirements of this country, or are we to suppose this is just a way of deceiving them and making them feel important, and that they must be kept quiet at all costs. If we feel that we have to produce every ounce of food and assist in the successful prosecution of the war, we all of us—and I include myself—will do it, and do it gladly. We will not trouble if we do not make this or that, but if we feel that we are simply being fooled with and that all is not required, and that it is not taken as important to have a long-term policy to meet the agricultural requirements, I do not think that any will gladly subscribe to all that is required of them today. They are willing, if it is wanted and it is genuine, and they will do it without question. If it is not sincere, I am afraid it will be said, and I have already seen signs of it, "I am not going to bother; it does not very much matter." The farmer is absolutely certain that, agriculturally speaking, everything is wrong and he has yet to be persuaded that everything, agriculturally speaking, is right, and I do not think that he is far wrong. The average farmer is absolutely a sound man and is not swayed by any political influence, but by his knowledge of what is required throughout the country.

This is no party matter. I do not try to make party points against hon. Members opposite, and I am sure that they do not try to make party points against me, but we shall never get everything going properly as we are at present constituted. I could not see anything in the speech of the Minister of Agriculture today—not one really big concrete thing. He told us nothing. He did not tell us anything that would make us really feel that the efforts that were being made were recognised by the War Cabinet. It is a question of high policy which it is very difficult to deal with here. If the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) had been here, I think that he would have supported that idea, and I believe that he was right in the criticisms he has made in this House, that the whole trouble is with the Treasury. When we get to the Treasury we know that every possible power of obstruction is put forward. We have to find out who is protecting the Treasury on this occasion.

We come back to the question, Who is really preventing agriculture coming into its own and playing the part that it wants to play in this war? Who are the people behind the scenes? Are they the Export Council, the Board of Trade, or the Ministry of Food? No, they are not. They are far more obscure than that. It appears that very few in this House will really take up this matter and probe into it. They will not deal with the fundamental question, but with the price of onions or carrots, or whether milk is one penny or a halfpenny a pint too low. These are all very important points, but they are not fundamental issues at all. The fundamental issues go on year after year unchecked. Look at the Press today. You do not get one word in our daily papers of any practical constructive policy for agriculture. The whole thing is muffled and stifled and absolutely without reality, and anybody who gets up here and talks at all seriously is either laughed at or someone says, "He is on his usual bent." If we are to be practical and intend to continue as an agricultural country, we have to do something about these things, and now, and I am persuaded that on present lines we shall never do it because of the failure of the Prime Minister and the War Cabinet to appreciate the seriousness of the position, and the complete and absolutely undying obstruction of the Treasury to prevent anything financial being done. We have the unfortunate Minister of Agriculture simply saying, "One day I shall get rid of all this and get on to something better." I hope that he does, and I wish him every success. But, above all else, I want something to be done really for the benefit of agriculture, and it should be brought forward in the War Cabinet. I hope that the Prime Minister will give the House an assurance that the War Cabinet will support the idea that agriculture plays, as I believe, a front-line part in the war effort. It should not be a matter of mere words but a real, living reality, and it should go forward from now on, so that posterity should really have that love of the soil, the cultivation of which is the backbone of every country.

Sir Irving Albery (Gravesend)

I wish to draw attention to two matters which are perhaps on the fringe of agriculture, but certainly have to do with food production. The Minister, I believe, is starting a campaign to encourage what he calls victory gardens, which is one of the matters to which I wish to draw his attention. A great many people are, quite rightly, growing a good deal more produce than they used to do with the main object of helping food production, but as a result of it, there is to-day in the country an enormous amount of waste, simply because there does not seem to exist any machinery for the distribution and marketing of the surplus. It is, therefore, no good the Minister proceeding with this most desirable campaign, unless, at the same time, he is prepared to put up some kind of machinery to deal with the produce.

The other point I want to raise is in connection with pigs. The pig farmer, under present conditions, cannot keep up with the normal pig production in this country, and by means of pig clubs the cottager is to take on some of that production. The pig clubs are making some progress, but I am convinced that we would get a very much larger production if the Minister would make it more possible for the ordinary individual cottager working on his own to keep pigs, which to-day is not made easy for him. The recent regulations made some provision for the cottager who keeps one pig, and even those were not too good. I suggest to the Minister that it is far better to make provisions to encourage the cottager to keep two pigs. When you take a young pig away from its family it is inclined to pine and does not thrive as would two pigs. If you have had two pigs together for three of four months and you take one away and kill it, the remaining pig is inclined to pine. Therefore, a man ought to keep two pigs, and kill two pigs. If, up and down the country, smallholders and cottagers were encouraged to keep two pigs, and it was made easier for them, we would get a much larger pig production, which would considerably replace the shortage which arises from the bigger farmers being unable to continue the supply at the present time. With that object in view, I suggest that the marketing arrangements must be made easier. A cottager has not the facilities for sending pigs to market. There should be an arrangement by which he could market his pigs with the local butcher. He should be able to retain, at any rate, half a pig for himself and his friends, and, if possible, some arrangement should also be made by which a portion of the pig could be turned into ham or bacon. That is next to impossible at the present time. I understand that the bacon factories who deal with the large supplies are overwhelmed with work, and, in any case, it involves a lot of transport, which is expensive.

Mr. Loftus

Surely my hon. Friend realises that many of these cottagers, either themselves or their friends, know how to cure a pig, and under the regulations they are entitled to do so.

Sir I. Albery

I knew that that was so, but I imagine that the position varies in different parts of the country, and no doubt there are parts of the country where most of the agricultural population still know how to cure pigs. But, unfortunately, there are certain parts of the country where few know anything about it; at any rate, they have not got the facilities. That is all I wanted to say on this point, but if the Minister could find some way of tackling this problem, he would certainly help to increase food production in this country. One last thing that I wish to say is this: There is, unfortunately, to-day still a very big waste of foodstuffs in many of the Services. I believe it applies to many of the women's services. The amount of food being issued is considerably more than they can consume, with the result that much of it is wasted. In other directions, too, waste occurs—for instance, through food being badly prepared. I do not say this has anything to do with the Ministry of Agriculture, but it seems that it does concern the Ministry of Food, and certainly it does concern all the Fighting Services.

Mr. Adamson (Cannock)

The Debate to-day has covered a very wide field of agriculture, but there are other aspects which could be brought into this discussion and which come under the same Department, and I am sorry the Minister did not touch on the wider sphere which concerns the whole of his administration. I listened to the record of his stewardship with some interest and the pronouncements which he made apart from the figures of development of machinery, ploughing up, and the other ramifications concerned with agriculture. With regard to arrangements with banks, I am not entering into that aspect of the question, because it is a more general matter, nor am I to-day critical of much that the Ministry have done during the period of the war. They have had the courage to do something in war-time that they were evidently afraid of doing in peace-time. There is one thing, at least, that they have to be thankful for, and that is being absolved from many labour problems by the intervention of the Ministry of Labour in dealing with wages board administration and the fixing of a minimum wage. That has made a status for the agricultural worker which he never achieved before and has indirectly solved many of the labour difficulties that were bound to arise in agriculture.

I was interested in the statement by the Minister about the field-to-field survey and what was possible to be ploughed up, but I am not so sure that some of the administration is up to the standard that we might have expected, and it is from that point of view that I want to say a few words to-day. Of course, it is recognised that the Minister had to hand over his powers to the war agricultural committees. Is he seeing that these committees are carrying out those powers in the spirit originally intended? In a representative capacity I have had the opportunity on many occasions of discussing this matter with the right hon. Gentleman who preceded the present Minister and his Departmental chiefs. We were assured that the spirit of the powers with regard to ploughing up would be put into operation with every due consideration for circumstances. It may be that in some counties the powers are being carried out very effectively, but I want to give two typical instances, the details of which I need not go into because they have been placed before the officers of the Ministry for their consideration.

The first instance goes back to the early part of 1939 and concerns the 40-acre piece of land which the Ministry's officers impressed upon the owner should be cultivated. The owner was agreeable, but he was not a farmer; he was actually an estate agent, and the difficulty of this order was that he could not get a tenant farmer to take over the land. The officer of the war agricultural committee said the land was not of such fertility that he could recommend the £2 per acre for ploughing up, and he advised the owner to try and get someone to do the work. The latest report is that a letter has been sent to the owner reminding him of the powers which the war agricultural committee could exercise in enforcing the cultivation of this land. The owner has tried to get the land turned over and has even offered to accept a peppercorn rent, but no one is prepared to cultivate it. Small tenant farmers round about had neither the labour nor the machinery to cultivate the land. It is a problem that will have to be faced, and I am anxiously waiting to see the result.

The other instance is one which ought to have had greater consideration by the officers of the war agricultural committee, although I gladly endorse the tribute paid by the Minister to the work of these committees and the many individuals who have given their time and labour to supervising the land and giving advice. It concerns a piece of land on the rural side of Wolverhampton which had been bought some years ago for building land. From time to time the officials of the war agricultural committee came and surveyed it. They gave instructions that it should be ploughed up last year. The owner, knowing that it had been good fertile land and that he was not likely to be in a position to realise it for building purposes, on the best advice he could get ploughed it and laid it out. This year he had it again inspected by officials of the war agricultural committee. Very often, as in this case, they do not notify the owner that they are coming to inspect it. They go on the land, and he gets the report afterwards. On one occasion at least a landowner was told that an inspector was there, and be intercepted him and asked what his business was and why he had not been advised. The specious reason was that they did not know whether the owner was actually the builder or the builder's wife. It would not have taken much trouble to find out. The Land Commissioners would know very well. The final touch of irony was when the war agricultural committee evidently convinced the right hon. Gentleman that he should apply the order for the land to be taken over. I do not ask for a reply to-day, because the matter is in the hands of the Department, but it is one of the things in which more consideration should be shown to owners of land who are not accustomed to the normal difficulties which apply to agriculture, and consultations with them or their representatives should be made more freqently before an order for ploughing up or requisitioning is made.

In areas round large towns and cities there are many allotments. The Minister and the Department are encouraging allotment holders to do their utmost to provide food, and more and more land is laid out to meet the situation. My association at Wolverhampton found that rabbits were eating up their newly laid spring cabbage. The War Agricultural Committee ever since last May has been repeatedly notified of this pestilence, but, whilst sympathetic, apparently nothing can be done. Surely the owners of the surrounding land ought to have some responsibility laid upon them to get rid of these vermin, in so far as they are vermin when they eat up the allotment holder's stock. It is a great problem which will have to be faced at some time. The Secretary of the Association is tired of writing to the Chief Executive Officer. He gets a formal acknowledgment and that is the end. I trust that instructions may be given that, while war agricultural committees may be performing their functions exceptionally well as far as the farming community is concerned, they equally want to safeguard the rights of allotment holders.

There is a further aspect of the farmers' work to which I trust the right hon. Gentleman will give some attention before the forthcoming season. The isolation of the Channel Islands is going to make a problem in the production of edible foodstuffs for the next season. In addition to that, horticulturists who specialise in cucumbers, lettuces and other commodities have had to face many difficulties. Anti-aircraft guns have made it impossible for them to keep their greenhouses in good condition. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to look into this matter and see whether some suitable representation could be made for the supply of glass or some other substance for damaged greenhouses. The question of replacing broken glass for horticulturists who are in a small way is a very real problem which could be overcome. After all, with the loss of the Channel Islands as a result of enemy occupation, we should do all we can to encourage the growing of horticultural products to help the food situation and to give greater variety. I only trust that the Debate which has raised these issues will give greater activity to the Minister's Department, and that the right hon. Gentleman will be active and energetic in pursuing what is a most essential work to maintain the spirit of our people.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Ernest Brown)

In connection with this discussion on the very vital problem of food production in war-time, one thing will be noticed in the country to-morrow, and that is the concern of a number of Members, not so much with the present position, as with the future of agriculture. Summing up the main impressions I have in my own mind after listening to the whole of the Debate I would say that it is clear that the problem which overwhelms all others in the minds of some hon. Members, is not that of the arrangements which have been made by the Government, but the problem of what the future is to be. That, of course, must be the concern, not of individual Members alone, but also of the Government. It has a hearing on the problem of prices. One of the worst things which could happen to the industry would be that prices should be raised in war-time to such a level—as was the case in the last war—that they cannot in any case be maintained after the war is over. I am sure the agricultural community are very well aware of that fact.

My hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster (Mr. J. Morgan) began by finding what he thought was the right attitude to my right hon. Friend's speech. He called it "pedestrian." I will make one reply. I did not myself find it pedestrian. I found it widely-based, extremely clear and full of the kind of practical information which both this House and the agricultural community want. But if it had been pedestrian, my reply to the hon. Member is that ninety-nine hundredths of the work on a farm is pedestrian. The success of agriculture is based on men's feet. It is a pedestrian, hard dull business.

That is not to say that I agree with the adjective the hon. Member used. Since he found an adjective for my right hon. Friend, perhaps I may find one for the hon. Member, which I use in the G. K. Chesterton sense. I found his speech frivolous in the Chestertonian sense. It was earnest and energetic, but it was also frivolous. Chesterton once said that a thing which was fundamentally inconsistent was fundamentally frivolous, and I found my hon. Friend's speech fundamentally inconsistent, and therefore fundamentally frivolous. He was complaining that the level of prices had been fixed by the Government and not by the Minister of Food or the Minister of Agriculture. He went so far as to complain because the level of prices was so high that farmers would be able to recoup themselves for their capital expenditure. At the conclusion of his speech I found an entirely different story. That was a complaint, not of the high level of prices, but of the low level. I would ask the hon. Gentleman to look at his speech to-morrow, to read it in cold blood and see whether I have not a great deal of basis for my reflection that his speech was frivolous.

Mr. J. Morgan

Will the right hon. Gentleman do me the credit of reading my speech? He will then find I said that the farmers were trying to get high prices to cover their capital outlay. I did not say they were getting it.

Mr. Brown

The hon. Member must read his own speech, as I shall read it. I read every speech in Debates, because my view is that one of the greatest documents ever issued in this country is the daily OFFICIAL REPORT. Sometimes I have to sift a whole sack of chaff, but very often in a speech like that of the hon. Gentleman I find good food. The hon. Gentleman said he found my right hon. Friend's speech pedestrian, because it had no sign of a plan. I say, on the contrary, that the whole speech was based on a plan. I understand that the hon. Gentleman was at one time a member of an agricultural committee. Had he maintained his connection he would have found that, so far from not having a plan, there is not an agricultural executive in the kingdom which does not know what the plan is. More than that, there are many agriculturists who are giving up their spare hours to carrying out this national plan. Speaking for the 40 agricultural committees in Scotland, I can say that so far from lacking contact with Ministers, both my right hon. Friend and I have done our best to have personal contact with every committee, or at least with the chairmen and secretaries, to make sure that they understood what the Government were planning.

Let me put this clearly, because there is a good deal of confusion about production of food. It is not true that we want the maximum of food production. What we want is the maximum of food production which the nation needs to keep it in health and strength during war time. That is the answer to a good many people who have grown the wrong kind of vegetables. If they had listened to the advice given to grow the kind of which we were likely to be short, such as carrots and onions, instead of so many cabbages, they would not have had the troubles to which my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Loftus) called attention. He would be the first to admit that his particular problem is a specialist and local one. We have to look at this question as a nation-wide problem. That is the Government view. It has been stated, and the price levels have been fixed with a due regard to it, which explains the increases in some prices and decreases in others. The Government have had regard to advice received as to the kind of foodstuffs which are necessary in war time for keeping the nation in health and strength, which is the real problem.

Mr. Morgan

Barley.

Mr. Brown

The hon. Member is rather obsessed with barley, but barley is not all. If he had negotiated as many ranges of prices as my right hon. Friend and I and the Minister of Food have had to negotiate he would not put barley quite as high as he does. We have had to survey the whole field. The policy of the Government, so far from lacking a plan, as the hon. Member for Doncaster seems to think, was really the result of a considered plan, and that plan was based on the only sure foundation in war time; that is, what the Government wanted in the way of food production, namely, the maximum that was required to maintain the health of the nation. All those who have discussed this problem know that in recent years a great deal of thought has been given to the problems of the health and strength of the nation, especially on the side of nutrition, Not only have medical committees considered this question, but a great deal of practical work has been done about it, and the Government have been advised about it.

Let me say what I think scientific advice would be about the matter. It would say first that there are things which are vital, and, secondly, that there are things which are supplementary. Among the vital requirements it would put bread, milk, potatoes, oatmeal, vegetables and fats. [An HON. MEMBER: "Meat."] I hear somebody say "Meat." That is not so. I am now talking about purely scientific advice in terms of nutrition. Meat may come among the other desirable things but not in the category of vital foodstuffs. There is no scientist who imagines that one can keep a nation healthy and strong merely in terms of calories. One must have regard to other things; first of all to the habits of the people and the foodstuffs they like, as well as the things which the scientist says is good for them. Not even the most abstract of scientific arguments could be without regard to the effect of any advice given in those terms, upon the whole agricultural economy of the country. I think that is a comprehensive and fair statement.

I am not now arguing whether the prices that have been fixed for this year and outlined for next year are agreed upon, but I am pointing out one thing. Those who have observed the trend in prices of those products which have been raised in price for next year and those which have gone down, will see that there is a relation to basic need, and that the things which have obtained increases are those which have to do with the essentials of health and strength. That, of course, is the difference between the rise in milk prices, in summer or winter, and the drop in certain other directions. Anyone viewing this matter from the agricultural point of view, especially in certain parts of our country, will do so with a good deal of sadness at the complete reversal of a generation of agricultural policy. But the Government have to look at the matter in war-time, and not merely at the Navy's needs, as one hon. Member said. The Government have to look at all the Departments concerned with our war economy that make their demand upon shipping. We, like they, have to have regard first of all to the possibility of importing the things that are vital to obtain victory, whether machines, munitions, raw material or foodstuffs, and in the light of those possibilities to lay out a programme to get the best use of our own land—not in terms of maximum food production, but of the maximum production which is needed in war-time for sustaining this nation always in health and strength and in the vigour which will bring victory. That, I hope, is a clear statement, and it is in the light of that that Members have to regard this, that or the other price.

I would say this: The idea that the hon. Member for Doncaster seemed to have that there is nothing behind all this but a perpetual war between the Agricultural Department and the Minister of Food is quite erroneous. It is essential that the agricultural Ministers, my right hon. Friend and myself, should put to the committees on which we serve for this purpose, and to the Government as a whole when it goes to the War Cabinet for high policy to be settled, what we believe to be the right advice from the agricultural point of view. That is our duty and we do it. It is also the duty of the Minister of Food to put his point of view in the light of the nation's needs in foodstuffs and of the programme regarding what can be brought from overseas. But, if there is a difference, neither the Minister of Food nor we settle it. It is settled if necessary by the War Cabinet itself. To talk of the policy of the Secretary of State for Scotland on the one hand or that of the Ministry of Food on the other, is entirely to misread the situation. It is Government policy decided in the light of the best advice from all quarters.

Just one word to the hon. Member for Evesham (Mr. De la Bère). I am always prepared to listen to a man who speaks passionately about anything, for I sometimes speak passionately myself, and I am quite prepared to listen to him, as I have done many times, on his favourite witch hunt. He is the champion witch hunter of the House; the witches he hunts have nearly always been corporations, which have neither bodies to be kicked nor souls to be saved. I am always prepared to listen, for he has strong views about the banks, the milling corporation, about credits and a number of other things. It is always an advantage to the House of Commons and to Ministers to have strong views put strongly. But when my hon. Friend the Member for Evesham comes to tell me in the House of Commons that he knows all about the War Cabinet, its composition, its deeds and misdeeds, I must refuse to take him seriously. He is talking about something he knows nothing whatever about. If and when he becomes a member of a War Cabinet, he may have a right to speak—if secrecy will allow him. I would make this assertion, that if he ever did become a member of the Government, his language would be much more temperate than in the course of his witch hunting.

We have had three points of view expressed, first the extreme one, then the view which merely looks at the little man, and then the important view of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Maldon (Sir E. Ruggles-Brise), who, I think the House will agree, really hit the nail on the head when he said we must think not so much of a short-term credit which was clearly defined and which was cleared off when the obligation was ended and the deed done, but with a long continued trend. I may add to what my right hon. Friend said that the problem in Scotland is happily not the same as in England, though I understand that there is no witch hunt against the Scottish banks, so I need not worry about them. But when my right hon. Friend stated so clearly that the course he was proposing provided for liaison between the banks and the agricultural committees in providing credit for war production, I think the House will agree on the whole that that is the proper way to go to work—on the spot where the trouble is, so that if there is trouble, they may know how best to set about remedying it. If we are to get production of the kind of foodstuffs that we want, no man should be hindered for the lack of the credit that he needs.

Let me say a word about the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Fare-ham (Sir D. White). He made an uncontroversial maiden speech, full of practical suggestions, saying what he had to say and then sitting down. Part of his speech was a reply to the speech of the hon. Member for Doncaster, and, by implication, to one or two speeches which were delivered after his. He pointed out the other side of what was called the cashing-in campaign, because it cannot be of very great advantage for hundreds of thousands of acres of land to be ploughed up in this campaign when it has been reseeded. He also dealt with the question of acorns. I am glad to say that the Minister of Agriculture and the President of the Board of Education have co-operated on this question, and that advice has been issued as to the best way in which schoolchildren can be encouraged to save acorns for the purposes to which my hon. Friend directed attention. We shall note his point about the self-feeders in connection with threshing machines.

I think I have said enough to show that it is clearly the view of the Government that milk production must come first. While there is general realisation that milk production has been down, it was not quite a fair point to make at the moment, having regard to the very stern winter we had last year. In view of the areas now in use, as compared to the areas in use then, it may well be that those who take the view that milk production will be down this year will be proved wrong. At any rate, so far as the Government are concerned, and so far as the agricultural committees are concerned, we believe that we have done our best, in fixing the price level well ahead, to provide a fair return, though we must always have regard to any changes that may occur. The valuable statement which was made about feeding-stuffs and fertilisers will go a long way towards reassuring agricultural opinion in the light of the prices now fixed. My hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr. Robertson), whose speech I welcomed, left no doubt in one's mind that, although he does not sit for a Scottish seat, he is a Scotsman. He really pointed out what is, from a Scottish point of view, a sore spot. I have had contacts with the agricultural community in many parts of Scotland recently, and they have led me to believe that the Government level of prices is not far wrong. There is an exception in the case of the hill sheep farmer. It is not easy to settle this merely in terms of lamb and wool prices. With the exception of 1937, which could be called a reasonably good year, he has had a decade which has been very bad for him. One of the things which struck me as I have made my visitations is that on the hill lands and other lands of Scotland not highly cultivated, in recent years there has been a far greater deterioration in the soil than, I think, a good many who fixed the charge at the time realised.

More than that, one of the greatest of all our troubles is the pests. Rabbits are a pest, but bracken is the biggest pest. There was a time in this House when bracken prevention was taken as a Parliamentary joke, but it is a serious matter. Cannot we have a really vigorous campaign, not for one year, but perhaps for five years, in order to eliminate this pest which is destroying so much fertility in the soil? I make no prophecies about that, but at any rate I have it very much in the forefront of my mind, and my Department is working at it now.

We have had an advantage this year because of an advance of 2½d. in black-face wool, and I hope that the hon. Member will understand that, with regard to the black-face wool supply there has not been such keen buying of that commodity. We must get a much more accurate and detailed statement of costs so that we can try to remedy the case. I have asked the hillside farmers and others in Scotland to present details of the position, and the National Farmers' Union have made a request for a deputation to be jointly received by my colleague and myself, and, as far as I am concerned, I shall be very glad for that consultation to take place.

The hon. Gentleman the Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Loftus) raised what is not only in his part of the country but in other parts, especially on the East and South East Coasts, a very vital problem, namely, that those who have had prosperity because they have had fine local markets in recent years have had those markets destroyed and have not been able to find alternative markets in the way they should. He will have noticed that my right hon. Friend and I made representations about vegetables to the Service Departments, and that from now on there will be a much bigger fresh vegetable ration—five days a week—than there has been, and that should help. With regard to the other problem, he wants to know whether the Institutes will take vegetable produce. My hon. Friend has this matter under consideration, and more I cannot say at the moment.

Mr. Loftus

My right hon. Friend said that markets had disappeared, but new markets have come with the troops, as they came during the last war. During the last war they started Army canteens. To-day N.A.A.F.I. blocks them and forbids them to deal in vegetables. Generally, locally, they fare better than in N.A.A.F.I. It is regrettable when you think of the waste of food and of N.A.A.F.I. being prosecuted for wasting food.

Mr. Brown

My right hon. Friend made it perfectly plain, and I can say no more. We will leave it there. My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir J. Lamb) raised the very big issue of the regularisation of the marketing of the products of the land. He will know that with regard to cattle the Ministry of Food have done a great deal. A valuable point raised by the hon. Member for Doncaster was that the position with regard to potatoes was clear save in one respect. The Minister and I met agriculturists from England, Wales and Scotland, and they put before us two or three points. They said, "We want to know ahead what prices are going to be, whether they are good or not." That has been done. Second, they said about potatoes, which is a very special Northern Scottish problem, as bigger surpluses are there, "If we can get an undertaking that the surpluses will be taken over at the end of the season, that will be a great advantage."

At the moment the situation is this: The idea that there is perpetual war between the Ministry of Food and the Ministry of Agriculture is entirely wrong. The Minister of Food, in the course of his administration, has given an undertaking that he will buy as regularly as possible from all parts throughout the season The only point left for announcement is that of prices for the end of season surplus. I cannot say anything about that except to put forward the two extreme views. One is that prices ought to be those in operation at the beginning of the season, and the other is that prices ought to be the end-of-the-season prices. What the solution will be I will leave to the imagination. Even that does not settle it. The hon. Member for Doncaster knows that potatoes are not all alike. The long schedules of prices cover hundreds of various grades, so that the marketing, buying, and selling of potatoes, as well as raising them, are not so simple as is believed by those who boil potatoes, though even that in itself is not so simple.

With regard to the point raised by the hon. Member for Gravesend (Sir I. Albery), small pig clubs are issuing a leaflet to small pig breeders in order that they may know how best to cure pigs which they cannot get cured through the ordinary channels. The hon. Member for Cannock (Mr. Adamson) will not expect a detailed answer from me; he put his points to the House, and I have no doubt the files will be looked up. I would only say this: It is an enormous advantage to the Minister of Agriculture and to me to have in every area a live war agricultural executive committee doing its level best to look after not merely the interests of the farmers but the interests of the nation as a whole. There is an enormous wealth of patriotism to be found in our countryside; indeed, the springs of our national wealth have always been found in the countryside. If the countryside is sound, the nation is sound, and I am sure that the Government will continue to do their best to give the agricultural community guidance and to settle prices fairly over what is a difficult series of industries. The Government know they can trust the people on the land, the workers, farm servants and all concerned, to do their best to see that we get the maximum amount of foodstuffs we want so that whatever happens on the seas, and despite the ups and downs of naval and Mercantile Marine work, we shall have in this island enough food to keep our people strong and healthy and end the campaign victoriously, so that there may be a delayed-action bomb for Hitler, that delayed-action bomb being the actions of a free people who are determined to remain free. The mills of God may grind as slowly as ever they did, but they will grind as surely as ever they did.

Mr. David Adams (Consett)

I should like to utilise a part of the time that is available on a matter which is, after all, germane to a Debate on the Ministry of Agriculture. Both Ministers have made it clear that it is the aim of Government policy to produce the maximum quantity of food requisite to preserve the health and strength of the nation. The question of nutrition has also been touched upon, and I am glad to note that milk was particularised by the Secretary of State for Scotland. It is upon that class of food that I wish to address the House. Milk production has been aimed at in the matter of quantity, but it cannot yet be said that the attention of the Ministry has been devoted to it in the matter of quality. I am sorry that I have been prevented by other duties from being able to speak before the Minister in order that he might have given some reply as to what is intended in this matter. The milk farmer can ignore all considerations of hygiene. He can also ignore the health of consumers. There is a certain quality of milk, known as undesignated, which is described by medical officers of health as being unfit, in its present state, for human consumption. Yet it is produced, and no serious attempt has yet been made to bring these farms up to the proper standard which ought to prevail in this country, and which unquestionably prevails in other more agriculturally-minded countries of the world. We are receiving some 40 per cent. of our milk from these farms. It is unquestionably a jeopardy to the health of the community. It contains excremental pollution, which could be discovered in a casual way on the farm, and it certainly contains pathogenic organisms which are responsible for tuberculosis and a diversity of other diseases. Certainly it ought not to continue.

At Newcastle, I was on a deputation, which included the medical officer of health, to wait on the Ministry of Health in Whitehall in connection with this subject, and also on the Ministry of Food. The object was to induce those Ministries to take necessary action to enable Newcastle Corporation—and all other corporations, of course, are equally concerned—to produce and provide pure milk for their populations. Singularly enough, both Ministries declined responsibility in the matter. The Ministry of Agriculture stated that it might be the Ministry of Food which was responsible, and the Ministry of Food declared that it must be the Ministry of Agriculture, and that apparently is the case to-day. If that be so the Minister of Agriculture ought to advise the House—and I hope to keep pursuing this subject until, in due course, some remedy is applied—on what steps are to be taken to deal with those milk-produc- ing farms that are below the proper standard.

It is true that there is a good deal of looseness in regard to public funds. A sum of £3,000,000 was expended last year in bribes and presentations to larger farmers to produce tuberculosis-free herds. But farmers were unable to take advantage of that, either as a result of indifference or poverty. They could not reorganise their farms to enable them to earn those grants. This negligence on the part of these farmers, or this poverty, must be dealt with by the Ministry of Agriculture in some form or other. I wonder whether the Ministry will not give specific instructions to the war agricultural executive committees to deal with those farms precisely as they deal with farms which are not producing the necessary foodstuffs. There have been cases in the North where committees have taken over farms where bad farming has been shown to be against the public interest. Surely if the health of the community is affected even in a minute degree—and in this case it is to a larger degree—the county committees could be authorised to take the steps I have indicated? They could give the necessary advice, and it might be possible to give financial support to the farmers. From personal knowledge I am aware that there might be much more intensified instruction given to farmers who are not producing the standard of milk which the Ministry of Agriculture requires. If the Minister will say that this matter, which hitherto has unquestionably been neglected, will receive his attention and consideration, then I and the medical officers of health and others will be satisfied.

I would conclude with the observation that great concern is being shown with regard to the present situation, and at the fact that much of the milk supplied by the Food Ministry is put most improperly on the market. Glasgow Corporation have issued large posters and handbills in health centres in effect warning consumers, children, mothers and others to use no class of milk but tuberculin-tested or pasteurised milk, and to ignore all other. It is a serious state of affairs, when such an implication is made in respect of more than 40 per cent. of the milk which comes on to the market and which, perforce, the community drinks to-day. I ask the Ministry of Agriculture to realise that this is no light matter, to give it very serious consideration, and to let the House know, in some way or other, that stern action will be taken to bring these standards up to what they ought to be.

Question, "That the Bill be now read a Second time," put, and agreed to.

Bill read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for the next Sitting day.—[Mr. Boulton.]