WAR AGRICULTURAL COMMITTEES. (Hansard, 10 April 1941)

§ Mr. Granville
Suppose the elephant does not believe it?

Mr. Hudson
My hon. Friend asked whether the things we were doing were obtaining increased food production at this critical period of the war. Well, the purposes of the powers under the Defence Regulations, which I have delegated for the most part to the county war executive committees, are to increase the home production of food and that is the test to be applied both under the present system or under any alternative system. Would any alternative system be better than the present system? I do not think it would. The hon. Member, in talking about conditions in Suffolk, said it was wrong that the question of whether or not a farmer was farming a particular piece of land in the wrong way should remain to be decided between an official and the farmer. But it is not a question between an official and the farmer. It is a question between the district committee, selected as being representative of the best farmers in the area, whatever the level may be—and the level is bound to differ in various parts of the country according to the standards of farming—and the individual farmer. I am prepared to take the view of the committee as to whether a farmer is or is not farming his land in the best possible way.
The question, however, does not end there. The hon. Member asks for a court of appeal. In the ordinary course of events the question of the farming of a particular piece of land comes before the district committee and then the executive committee, in turn, considers their report. The farmer has the right of going to the executive committee and asking for his case to be reconsidered. If there are any new circumstances the executive committee gives consideration to them, and I find that they are always prepared to reconsider their previous decision in the light of any new circumstances. But even where the committee adhere to their previous decision that is not the end of the 1813 story, because no farmer can be dispossessed without my consent. In every single case of dispossession the executive committee has to put up a sound case to me. Therefore, there is, in effect, a court of appeal. The urgent thing at the present moment is to get more food production, and to get it as quickly as we can, and the great objection I have to a court of appeal is that it would result in very long delays. If you had a court of appeal you would be bound either to have it composed of men who did not know the district or to have it composed of different farmers in the same district, and they being good farmers presumably, you would come to the same result. Therefore, there is no case at all for a court of appeal.

§ Mr. Granville
I am not suggesting an alternative scheme; I am suggesting that we should amend the present scheme so as to make it practicable and bring in all these farmers to help food production. The right hon. Gentleman appoints a local committee, but I have letters from farmers in my constituency—which I am prepared to show him—which show that they have to deal with an official. There is correspondence between his Department, the county war executive committee, the district committee and the farmer. In each case it is not the local committee but an official they are dealing with and it is that I am asking the right hon. Gentleman to change.

Mr. Hudson
One of the first things I did after I had made a tour of the country when I was first appointed to the Ministry was to say to the various committees that I thought it would be a good thing to strengthen and assist their district committees by appointing in each district a technical officer to help them in the work of coming to decisions in the light of the best knowledge. In a great number of cases the local farmers are assisted by an official, and it can equally be said that the official is assisted by the farmers. This helps to give a further independence of view on the whole question. The hon. Member asked how the farmers can find resources. He ought to know, since he represents an agricultural constituency, of the existing schemes which are available to farmers. They can obtain credit from the bank in unlimited quantity, if they are worthy of 1814 it; and if they are not creditworthy, they can go to the county committee and get assistance under the Agricultural Requisites Scheme. Failing that, the committee can do work for them. It is nonsense to say that they cannot get resources. The only time when a man is turned out is when, clearly, he is the sort of man who will not do the work, will not obey the orders given to him, and will not make use of the resources. He is the hopeless fellow, and rightly he is turned out. If the hon. Member will read the Report of the Select Committee—

§ Mr. Granville
I have read it.

Mr. Hudson—
he will see that one of its most pertinent paragraphs states that if any complaint could be made about the committees and their action, it was that they had been too lenient in the past and had not turned enough men out.

§ Mr. Granville
In certain districts.

Mr. Hudson
According to the report of the Select Committee, that applied throughout the country. They went on to say that so dire is our need at the present moment that the committees must utilise their powers without any regard to the hardship inflicted on individuals. I hope the hon. Member will study that. Let me now turn to the sort of cases that are commonly brought up. One of such cases was in Warwick. One of the farming newspapers has been giving a good deal of prominence to the cage of a farmer who was dispossessed by the War Agricultural Committee in Warwickshire. Indeed, the newspaper went so far as to suggest that the hon. Member for Eye was going to raise the case to-day. What are the facts? This man was turned out by the Warwickshire Committee. He asked the Warwick branch of the National Farmers' Union to take up his case, but they refused to do so. He then went to the Rugby branch and asked them to take it up. They proceeded to do so. On 4th April a report was published of a meeting of the county branch of the National Farmers' Union to the following effect: We formed a deputation to the War Agricultural Executive Committee….I do not think anyone can dispute it, and I say that in my candid opinion that farm was not being cultivated in the country's best interests

§ Mr. Granville
Is that a newspaper report?

Mr. Hudson
It is a newspaper report, and it is confirmed by what was said in a report from my Land Commissioner who was present at the meeting between the deputation of the county branch of the National Farmers' Union and my War Agricultural Committee, when the deputation agreed that the war agricultural executive committee had acted correctly in terminating the tenancy. Their only complaint was that it ought to have terminated it last Michaelmas instead of now. It is quite clear that the committees, taken as a whole, are exercising their powers carefully and well. The hon. Member suggested that I should overhaul their membership. I have in a great number of cases obtained alterations in the composition of the committees, and their personnel is under continuous review. Taking it by and large, they have done a good piece of work for which this House and the country should be grateful. There has been more voluntary work done in this industry than in any other industry, and I think we should be very grateful for it.

§ Sir Henry Morris-Jones (Denbigh)
An important point has been raised, and my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture has tried to deal with it. I do not think he has dealt with it fully, although I agree that time is short. This is a matter of such great importance, that I hope the House may have the opportunity, on another occasion, of developing it further, than we have been able to do to-day. I am acquainted with farming more particularly in Wales. In that part it is mostly hill farming, which has been affected very much. There are, undoubtedly, cases of very great hardship among the small farmers in the hill districts in Wales. No doubt there are bad farmers there, as everywhere else, but there are also very good farmers. My right hon. Friend has quoted a glaring case, and stated that an appeal was made to him by the county agricultural committee.
I have raised a case in connection with one farmer I know, and I will give one illustration to the House of a rich farmer. He did not farm for his living, and had other interests which made him quite free from financial anxiety. He was told to cultivate 46 acres in a hill farm in a 1816 county with which I am acquainted. In view of his experience in the last war, he had found that cultivation on that land was disastrous. He had cultivated some barley, which had never been profitable, and some wheat at the request of the agricultural committee. The result was that the grain was condemned as unfit for consumption. He took the view, quite rightly, that, after 30 years on this farm, the land was uncultivable. What is the result? He writes many letters to me, and I told him the best thing he could do was to ask the county executive officer to meet him. He did so with the result that the figure of 46 acres was reduced to six. That justifies the attitude which has been taken by this particular farmer. He was a man with resources behind him, but what about the small farmer in the hills?
Many of these farmers had not the facilities, perhaps have not the inclination or do not know how to secure access to the agricultural committee executive. I fully realise that the process of appeal is a difficult, and possibly a delayed one. I would not go so far as my hon. Friend, but some form of appeal might be allowed. These committees are undoubtedly doing splendid work. I do not know any class of war-workers who do so much voluntary work involving so much time and travel. Would it not be possible in many cases for the chairman to be a paid whole-time man, and would it not also be possible for them to get additional officers? In many areas, they allocate land for production without inspection owing to the difficulty of covering the ground. If my right hon. Friend would meet the point I am sure he would gain what we all want, not so much a yardstick of acreage under the plough but crops. That is the test after all, the food that is actually grown. You might have thousands of acres cultivated which are not growing the crops and the land would be wasted. Co-operation is vital. The old adage of taking a horse to the water is appropriate in this case. In many cases you cannot make the farmer do what he does not think it right to do on his own holding about which he has intimate knowledge.

§ Mr. Wootton-Davies (Heywood and Radcliffe)
It is said "Needs must when the devil drives." I will not suggest that the Minister is the devil, but he is driving, and in this matter he is perfectly right. The plough will hurt no land, 1817 and, if we are to have better and better crops, we must have more and more ploughing. I want to appeal for more help for the hill farmer. We can get much more food from the hills, which constitute a large proportion of the area of the country. Many of them ought to be ploughed. But hill land is usually stony and requires much more ploughing than good land. It also possibly requires liming if it is to produce good crops. We 1818 have had two months of continuous frost in the last winter and no one could stick a plough into land 800 or 1,000 feet up.