HL Deb 07 July 1915 vol 19 cc311-38

[SECOND READING]

Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.

THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (THE EARL OF SELBORNE)

My Lords, I ask you to read this Bill a second time, and I will first briefly refer to its provisions. Clause I is to give the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries powers, for the purpose of maintaining a sufficient stock of animals to which this Bill applies, by Order applicable to England and Wales or any part thereof, to prohibit or restrict slaughter. Paragraph (b) of Subsection (1) of this clause is, with a view to making that first prohibition more effective, to prohibit or restrict the sale or exposure for sale of meat of immature animals which has not been imported. Paragraphs (c) and (d) are auxiliary to (a) and (b), and enable the Board of Agriculture to authorise any local authority specified in the Order to execute and enforce within their district all or any of the provisions of the Order, and provide for the manner in which the expenses incurred by the authority are to be defrayed; and to authorise any officer of the Board or of a local authority to enter any slaughter-house or other premises on which animals are slaughtered for human food and examine any animals or carcases therein. And paragraph (e) gives the Board power to prohibit or restrict the movement of animals out of any area in which the slaughter of such animals is prohibited or restricted. The reason for that will be obvious to your Lordships, because were no such provision inserted it would be quite easy for a person to take the cattle out of the area in which slaughter was prohibited into the next area in which slaughter was not prohibited, and thus defeat the very purpose for which the Order had been Made. The second subsection of the first clause lays down that the animals to which the Bill applies are "cattle, sheep, and swine."

Clause 2 deals with the penalty for offences under the Bill, and provides that if any person acts in contravention of or fails to comply with any of the provisions of an Order made under this Bill, or obstructs or impedes any officer in the execution of his powers or duties under any such Order, he shall, on conviction under the Summary Jurisdiction Acts, be liable to a fine not exceeding twenty pounds, or if the offence is an offence committed with respect to more than four animals to a fine not exceeding five pounds for each animal. Clause 3 contains the application of the Bill to Scotland and Ireland. Clause 4 is the title clause. It repeals the Slaughter of Animals Act, 1914, which was passed last August and would expire next August, and provides that this measure shall remain in force "during the continuance of the present war and for a period of twelve months thereafter and no longer."

The whole justification for this Bill, which with some slight variation is identical with the Bill that was passed by your Lordships last August, is the fact that we are in a state of war. It is a war emergency measure, and not one which in any other state of affairs any Government would think of presenting to your Lordships. For no one can have had any experience of farming in this country without knowing that the less the Government interferes with the farmer in the execution of his business the better it is for the farmer and for the country. I am speaking to noble Lords who have had long experience of agriculture, and I claim this much qualification for the office which I have the honour to hold, that I have myself farmed on a fairly large scale for nearly thirty years; and I know that the business and science of farming is an extremely complicated and difficult one, and that the conditions under which the farmer carries on his industry vary very much in the South from the North, in one county from another county, and even within different parts of the same county. The business of the dairy farmer is wholly different from that of the farmer who fattens beasts for the market. The business of the sheep breeder is wholly different from that of the general farmer who follows out a mixed system of grass and arable cultivation. And I know that as the years go on so farming in this country tends to greater specialisation. I take it that a hundred years ago there was much less difference between the practice of one farmer and another in the same district than there is to-day. One man specialises on milk, another on cheese, another on cattle, another on potatoes, another on fruit, and so forth. I mention these facts, which are so well known to your Lordships, merely to emphasise my assurance that I know that any interference on the part of the Government with the business of the farmer is in itself very regrettable and could not be justified except by the unfortunate fact that we are now engaged in war.

These considerations are heightened by two facts which must also be present to the minds of your Lordships. In the first place, the country has been suffering from a serious drought the effects of which cannot be entirely obliterated now even by the most abundant rain. The hay crop of this year must be a short one. Our pastures may contain a very abundant growth of aftermath in the later months of the year, but though this is of great advantage to the farmer it does not compensate him for the fact that he has only a short hay crop. In the second place, the price of meat is abnormally high. That is in itself an evil, and one which no Government would wish by any action that it took to increase. Therefore the case which leads me to ask your Lordships to accept such a Bill as this must be a really strong one. And indeed, my Lords, it is. It is one very simply stated, but I cannot imagine one of greater urgency or importance. During the course of this war the food supply of our people is a matter of paramount importance, and we should have no excuse if we allowed that food supply to be in any degree diminished owing to our want of forethought in not asking Parliment for such powers as would enable us, had we possessed them, to save our people from that diminution of their food supply. I put that down as a matter which requires no argument. There are some risks you cannot run, and one of those risks is that during this war there should be a diminution of one food supply.

In the matter of meat, as your Lordships know, this country is much more self-supporting than in the matter of cereals. Of the meat consumed in the United Kingdom about 64 per cent. is produced in the United Kingdom, and only the difference is imported front abroad. Now have we any reason to suppose that there is cause for anxiety about the constant transfer to this country of that 36 per cent, of the supply which we have been accustomed to import from abroad? In the first place, I cannot conceal from your Lordships that there is some danger of a shortage in that supply from abroad, not because less will come, but because more is being consumed. The fact that you have these vast Armies in France and elsewhere causes it greater consumption of meat. The men who are now fighting are consuming more meat than they would have if they had not been fighting; and the result is, so far as we can calculate, that even if there is no diminution in our oversea supply there will be less to come to this country for the use of the civil population. Therefore it is of the utmost importance, from that point of view alone, that we should have the power of conserving greatly our own live stock in the United Kingdom.

But it would be improper if I did not remind your Lordships that there is an additional danger, a war danger, to our food supply from abroad quite independent of the fact that the fighting men are consuming more than they did when they were civilians—that is what I may describe as the submarine menace. I think, my Lords, that the degree to which our Navy and the daring and seamanship of our mercantile marine have thwarted the intentions of the German Navy is wonderful. If you bear in mind the boasts with which the submarine campaign against our commerce was launched by the German Admiralty and compare the results with those boasts, and if you compare the total number of losses, serious as it is, with the number of our ships which go to and fro about their lawful business safely, I think you will agree that I do not exaggerate when I say that the meed of praise to the Navy and to the mercantile marine should be very great. But although that is so, it is the fact that German submarines are taking a steady toll of our ships, and the longer the war goes on the more submarines there will be probably engaged in this task. So far as we can look into the intentions of the German Admiralty it is probable that they are now putting their whole shipbuilding strength into the construction of submarines, and therefore we must expect the submarine menace to our shipping not to diminish but to increase. It will not be the fault of the German Admiralty or of the German Government if they fail to deal a mortal blow to our carrying trade, and especially at that part of that trade which brings to this country the necessary food for the people. Therefore as sensible men we have to look that danger in the face.

There is no reason to exaggerate the danger, but it would be foolish on our part not to acknowledge its existence or calculate the consequences which might ensue were our Navy less successful in its vigilance and the German Navy more successful in its attack. Therefore the reasons for the powers for which we ask seem to me to be overwhelming. We ask that you should arm us with the power to take such steps as may from time to time seem to us to be necessary to avoid any premature or hasty diminution of our flocks and herds owing to the fact that at any given moment prices may be so high as to tempt farmers to part with their breeding stocks and so reduce our supply. But if you give these powers I can assure your Lordships that they will be used not only with an ever-present sense of responsibility but only after careful consultation with the best practical agriculturists available for this purpose. As your Lordships know, we have a Consultative Committee established by my predecessor for the purpose of this war, presided over by Sir Ailwyn Fellowes and containing within itself a very strong representation of the practical working farmers of England and Wales. We shall always go to them for advice in these matters, and even if you suppose, which would not be true, that the Board of Agriculture are not aware of the specialisation of agriculture, you may be quite sure that this Committee will not leave us unreminded of the fact. An order, for instance, such as was made the other day, which may be welcomed and praised by those farmers who want store cattle may be very unpopular with dairy farmers. We know that quite well. We know that in the cattle industry we have the breeders to consider, the men who fat cattle, and also the dairy farmers.

I should like to refer for a moment, as it bears on the powers I ask for under this Bill, to some of the protests which we have received on the subject of the Order issued the other day prohibiting the slaughter of calves—except those belonging to certain dairy breeds—under twelve weeks old. That Order was made after consultation with the Advisory Committee, and after every possible step hail been taken to ascertain the opinion of farmers throughout the country. We have, however, received a certain number of remonstrances and protests against it, but they all come from what I may call the dairy districts; they are largely from Somersetshire and Gloucester- shire, the counties so fully represented by some of the noble Lords opposite. I am, indeed, sorry to cause inconvenience to the practice of those farmers. I know quite well that if you have to use milk to rear a calf you cannot sell that milk or make it into cheese. That is quite obvious. Therefore I can quite understand that these farmers should greatly dislike having the practice of their agriculture interrupted by their being prohibited from selling calves to the butcher when they had been accustomed to sell them and had been looking forward to continuing to do so. But I would point out to noble Lords opposite who may be said to represent those counties and those industries that there are other ways of disposing of calves besides selling them to the butcher—namely, selling them to some other fanner who is prepared to rear them. I agree that in a given district where every farmer is accustomed to sell his calves to the butcher and there are no rearers, it is not easy at once for the farmer to find a market for the calves which he cannot sell to the butcher and does not want to keep. But it ought not to pass the wit of man to devise a scheme by which a calf in, say, Herefordshire could be sent on to, say, the Eastern counties where there are farmers who are desirous of getting those calves. Surely if there was time that method of exchange would adjust itself, and I would suggest to noble Lords and those they represent that that is the real solution of the difficulty—that they should find a means by which the calves could be collected from the farmers who do not want to keep them and passed in truck loads to those markets where they could be readily disposed of.

I would say, in passing, that the curious part about the correspondence which we have received is this. In not one single protest that I have read with regard to the Order would you ever guess that we were at war. Whether the letter comes from a committee of a county council or from an individual farmer, there is not one simile reference to the state of war which was the only justification for the making of that Order. Those letters would have been a contribution to the merits or demerits of such an Order had they been written a year ago. But they make no allusion whatever to the only justification which exists for the Order, and it is therefore not easy to give them the weight one would wish.

I wish to say a word about sheep. We take powers under this Bill to deal with sheep, but, as your Lordships know, we have put no restriction on the sale of lambs or ewes in the Order which has been already published; and I take this opportunity of reassuring those who fear that the Board of Agriculture may not be aware that the rearing of fat lambs for the market is a particular branch of farming very successfully practised in various parts of the country. I am personally very familiar with this, as for over ten years I had a flock of horned Dorsets, and the only purpose of keeping such a flock is to get the lambs to the market at as early a date as possible where they do make a very real and important contribution to the food supply of the country. Therefore I would assure all sheep farmers that we are perfectly well aware of the special conditions of what I may call the fat lamb industry.

Then as regards pigs. Here the matter is constantly complicated by that scourge swine-fever, which never leaves us and with which all successive Administrations have hitherto failed successfully to cope. I should like to take this opportunity of stating that we are trying tentatively a new treatment—the serum treatment—which I hope the farmers will welcome. It is only in the stage of experiment at present. Pig treated with the serum does not thereby become permanently immune. But if swine fever breaks out on a farm and the pigs not yet infected are inoculated with this serum and then contract the fever from the infected pigs on the farm the great probability is that they will recover and ever after be immune. That is a very interesting contribution to our knowledge of the subject which has been made by the veterinary officers who have been working on this vexed question, and I very much hope that we may reap some real benefit from it and by our experience leant how to deal with swine fever much more successfully in the future than we have in the past. But it is necessary to take these powers in respect of pigs. There is no class of stock which reproduces itself so rapidly, and there might be at a given moment a very real necessity for checking the slaughter of sows in order that within a comparatively brief space of time the number of pigs in the country might be largely multiplied.

I ask for these powers because, quite frankly, your Lordships have already admitted by passing so many emergency measures that in the condition of war in which we find ourselves it is necessary for the Government to have in some respects the powers of a dictatorship. I am very far from suggesting that I am competent to exercise even the twenty-second part of a dictator's powers, but some one must do the work; and I can only say that we shall endeavour, if you give us these powers, to exercise them with common sense and with sympathy and knowledge of the difficulties of the farmers of this country.

Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Selborne.)

LORD STRACHIE

My Lords, I am sure none of your Lordships will disagree for one moment with what the noble Earl has said as regards the necessity of maintaining our food supply. The only difference I have with him is that I am not convinced by what he has said—and I doubt whether the House is convinced—that this Bill is the only way of doing it, and that it is necessary under this Bill, as he says, to make himself and the Board of Agriculture a dictator. Certainly our experience since the war began, judging from other Departments of State, is that it does not do entirely to make them dictators. I will not put it higher than that. I am sorry that the noble Earl did not refer to what I regard as the principal consideration of this Bill. I am not one of those who in any Way wish to put difficulties in the way of the maintenance of a full amount of stock in this country or of increasing it. On the contrary, I am most anxious to do everything in my power as an agriculturist to help the President of the Board of Agriculture in the matter. But I think the noble Earl will find, when expressions of opinion are given throughout the country, that his proposals do not command anything like the unanimous sense of agriculturists generally. I am not talking of the gentlemen who compose his Consultative Committee—the only gentlemen he seems to have consulted in this matter. I admit their position as agriculturists, but they are not men who live by firming, whose bread and butter depends on raising stock. I would rather go to the men who are practical farmers, who live on the land and by the land.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

The noble Lord is quite mistaken. There is a large representation on the Committee of men who are making their living on the land.

LORD STRACHIE

I do not think there is one tenant farmer on it.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

Yes, there is.

LORD STRACHIE

I will deal with that later. Now as regards the question of procedure. I wish the noble Earl had said something with regard to that, because to my mind, however much we approve of the principle and the idea of the Bill, the procedure is most objectionable. I mean the procedure which was found in the Act of last year—that is, that Orders made under that Act were not required to lie upon the Table of either House of Parliament. If the Order made under the Act of 1914 had lain upon the Table of this House, we should have had an opportunity of discussing it and pointing out its many objectionable features. But the Act of 1914 was a much smaller and simpler measure. That Act only allowed Orders to be made for one year, but this Bill goes a step further. It is the old story of the thin edge of the wedge. When the Board of Agriculture found that this House was willing to allow Orders to be made without their coining before it, no doubt they thought that it would be a good opportunity to ask that Orders in future made at any time during the war or a year after should not lie on the Table of the House. There is no doubt that it is most convenient for the Minister at the head of a Department and also for the officials of the Department to be able to make Orders without any control of Parliament over them.

I have not long had the honour of a seat in your Lordships' House, but for nearly twenty years I was a member of the House of Commons. I have noticed how Parliament has gradually been losing its control, how we have constantly been met with the argument, "It is desirable to do this by reference," or, more often, "It is desirable to do this by Orders." Those Orders at first were laid on the Table of either House, but the practice is growing of not laving them on the Table. Of course, the war argument may be used again, but the war argument does not apply to Orders being laid upon the Table of either House of Parliament, because those Orders come into force at the moment they are laid, only if either House chooses to vote an Address to His Majesty upon one of them that Order becomes null and void. The noble Earl may say to me, as an old member of the House of Commons, "Our Orders would be discussed and delayed, and there might be criticism." But the Government having taken the whole time of the House of Commons knows very well that that House would not have an opportunity of discussing these Orders, and they would only be discussed in this House. I am certain that no member of this House would ever do anything which would hamper the Government in carrying out an Order which they said was a national necessity. All Orders laid before this House would be criticised in a friendly spirit. Therefore the argument against Orders being laid before the Houses of Parliament is one that has not much substance in it.

The noble Earl referred to the differing interests of breeding, grazing, and so on, but I did not catch that he said anything with regard to those interests being dealt with separately, and certainly in the Order under the Act of 1914 no distinction is made between one area and another. I can assure the noble Earl that it is not only the agricultural interest in the West of England who object to the Order which has been made by the noble Earl and the powers which have been taken, but objection is also taken by the agricultural interest in Derbyshire, Cheshire, Lancashire, and the Midlands. The noble Earl honoured the County Council's Association the other day by addressing that body, and it may interest him to know that after he had left this Bill was referred to the Council's Parliamentary and Public Health Committee. That Committee was not able to meet until to-day and they unanimously passed a resolution approving of the Amendment which stands in my name on the Paper. Not one member took objection. Every speaker laid strong emphasis on the importance of all Orders under this Bill being laid before both Houses of Parliament, so that they could be investigated and, if necessary, criticised. There was a feeling that much greater care would be taken in the framing of the Orders if those who drew them up knew that there would be strict scrutiny and criticism of such Orders by members of this House. It maw be said that this Bill was carefully considered in another place, but I have the authority of Sir Rim Spear, the Member for Tavistock and a well-known agriculturist in Devonshire, that this Bill was not fully considered but as a matter of fact was rushed in another place. Old Members of the House of Commons know well how, late at night, a Bill is taken and rushed through.

Then the noble Earl talked about the Consultative Committee to which I have already referred. That Committee would have got greater weight if it had had the support of the Royal Agricultural Society or of the Bath and West of England Agricultural Society. But neither of those has up to now expressed any view in favour of the Order, and I notice that Mr. Acland, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture, was not able to quote any of the great societies as supporting his views on the subject. All he did was to make an oracular statement. Speaking in the House of Commons on the Second Reading of the Bill, he said— I believe that that Order, although it does not go so far as a great many people wanted us to go, will be generally welcomed. Farmers have been particularly urgent upon us that something of this kind should be done. They foresee, very clearly, it may not be to their permanent interest, whatever may be the temporary and immediate interest of some, that the breeding stocks of this country shall be depleted, because, when once depleted, it is very difficult to build them up again. They have, therefore, pressed upon us the passing of an Order of this kind, and we are very glad to be able to follow their advice. It is rather interesting that Mr. Acland, a West Country Member, should make such a statement, but he got his answer a week later when the Somersetshire County Council passed the following resolution— That this county council considers that the Order issued by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries with reference to the slaughtering of calves, dated June 23, 1915, is contrary to the best interests of agriculture, and will defeat the object of increasing the supply of meat and dairy produce; and is of opinion that two weeks should be substituted for twelve as in the recent Order. This body has not the slightest power to interfere with that Order, though it is very representative of agriculturists. Somerset is not only agricultural but industrial, with large coalfields, and of course this Council is representative of other interests besides agriculture. But there was not a single member who objected to this resolution. If they had thought that there was any question of reducing the supply of food I am sure that the industrial representatives would have protested most strongly. But not so; they were perfectly unanimous.

Again, Sir John Spear in the House of Commons complained of the farmers not being consulted and objected to the way in which it had been said that they approved of the Order. The noble Earl did not make any reference to the difficulties which farmers would experience under the prohibition of the slaughter of stock. As to the difficulties they would have with regard to the hay crop, it is true the noble Earl said that however much rain we had in the future he did not think it would help us in this case. That is true, because practically speaking the hay harvest is over. One of the difficulties from which agriculturists suffer when they are told to keep more stock is that they have less hay, and a lot has been commandeered by the War Office. In this connection I should like to call the noble Earl's attention to a resolution passed by the Somersetshire Chamber of Agriculture. It was as follows: That this chamber considers the commandeering of clover mixtures and hay of the best quality at £3 10s. on rail is grossly unfair and ruinous to the farmers, who are dependent upon the same to maintain their proper head of cattle on the farms, being, through the war, face to face with a considerable increase in the cost of production and the extraordinarily high prices of all artificial feeding stuffs, and also the possibility of a very short crop of new hay. So that I think the noble Earl will see that agriculturists have considered the state of things arising out of the war, and that they are perfectly prepared to keep as much stock as they can. Indeed, they would be glad to do it. They are most of them practical men. The noble Earl did not say anything as to whether there was a diminution of stock in this country, but as regards Scotland I notice that there has been a large increase there of cows and sheep.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

We have not the returns in yet, but shall have them very soon now.

LORD STRACHIE

I am informed that an answer was given in another place, with regard to England, that there would be a large increase of calves and cows.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

We have no information at present, but we shall get it in a few days.

LORD STRACHIE

Then I was wrong in thinking that such an answer was given in the House of Commons the other day?

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

I have no recollection of it; not an official one.

LORD STRACHIE

In effect the noble Earl says to the House, "While all you say may be true about these things, while we understand the difficulties of the farmers who, of course, are practical men, you ought to trust the Board of Agriculture in this matter and give us a free hand." I admit that had I to think only of the noble Earl himself I should probably be perfectly ready to give him a free hand. But I would remind the House that Presidents of the Board of Agriculture come and go fairly frequently. We have had in the last few years four different Presidents and many Under-Secretaries. Though we might be willing to trust the noble Earl himself, and though we are fortunate enough to have him as president in this House at the moment to answer Questions, perhaps the position may be reversed in two or three months' time. The noble Earl may be given, say, a higher office and we may have the President of the Board in the House of Commons and there would thus be no opportunity of cross-examining him on any Orders. And I would remind the House that past Presidents of the Board of Agriculture have done things by a stroke of the pen. I refer to what was done by Mr. Runciman, who, by a stroke of the pen, made an Order by which the importation of store cattle was allowed into this country, thereby driving a coach-and-four through the Statute. Mr. Runciman in his wisdom broke that down and brought store cattle into this country, thus creating a most clangorous precedent with regard to our flocks and herds in respect to foot-and-mouth disease, as he allowed cattle to be brought over from a country where foot-and-mouth disease is more or less endemic. I trust that the noble Earl will make further inquiries into this matter and may be willing to assent to the proposal which, so far as any public bodies have spoken upon it, has received unanimous support—namely, that all Orders made by him under this Bill should be laid before both Houses of Parliament. That is the ground upon which I move the Amendment standing in my name.

Amendment moved— To leave out all the words after ("That") for the purpose of inserting the following Resolution, viz.: ("This House regrets that no provision is made in the Bill for the laying of Orders made by the Board of Agriculture before both Houses of Parliament").—(Lord Strachie.)

LORD RIBBLESDALE

My Lords, I desire cordially to associate myself with the noble Lord who has just sat down and to support the Amendment that he has put before the House, that Orders of this kind should be allowed to lie on the Table of both Houses of Parliament. Personally I should have thought that the noble Earl himself would have felt regret that he had not provided for something of that sort in the Bill. He told us at the beginning of his remarks of the various idiosyncrasies which govern agriculture and convert this country agriculturally into a great many Englands. For that very reason it is clear that these Orders should be accessible to Parliament. I quite recognise that this is an emergency Bill, but on that account I think it wants very close scrutiny.

Perhaps I may state my credentials for saying something about this matter. I own and work, under a fifteenth century Charter to my family, a large auction mart at Gisburn, the centre of a great grazing and rearing district. In that auction mart 25,000 cattle of all kinds, 70,000 sheep, and 2,000 pigs, change hands. I am also here to-night because I have been asked to represent the views of the Craven Farmers' Association, whose headquarters is Skipton and who consist of 700 tenant farmers. So far as I know, we have not any one on the Committee upon which Lord Selborne has relied for information who represents that part of the country in any way, and although this association are perfectly willing to put up with the Bill because we are in a state of war, they have certain points which they have asked me to bring before the President of the Board of Agriculture to-night. Craven is a fine district; it is all grass and fell, and all cattle and sheep. I see the noble Duke on the Cross Benches who owns a large property at Bolton and who will corroborate that; and I venture to say that if he had gone up there ten days ago he would have heard very much the same sort of views from his tenants as I am putting before you to-night on their behalf. I ride about all that country a great deal, so that yon can take it from me that I am not talking of what I do not, at all events, know something about.

Now, this is what these people suggest to me. In the first place—and this has reference to what the noble Earl said of the peculiarly local characteristics which govern all agriculture in England—these people say that the most important point is to emphasise the absolute necessity of the officer of the Board or of the local authority mentioned in the Bill being a local and practical man, as no stranger can possibly understand the needs of a particular district. That, I think, is a very important point. In prehistoric days I used to answer in this House, only as a mouthpiece, for the proceedings of the Board of Agriculture, and I knew enough about the kind of answers I gave to know that they were boiled down, as it were, for the general consumption of the House but quite outside the local conditions. They represented the sort of boiled-down wisdom of an arm-chair official in the Board of Agriculture. But I do not want to go further into that.

Another point arises on the Order to which the noble Lord alluded just, now. Though the Craven farmers recognise that this is a war emergency Bill, they have not asked me to say very much more than I have said about the point of the officer of the Board being a man who knows his business and who knows the country. But they are very much opposed to the Outer, which no one had the opportunity of looking at, which prohibits the slaughter of calves. In our view, your local man ought to have power to select calves and to have all those branded, just as you are branding the Canadian horses, which in his opinion are unfit for keeping. This brand would free the butcher from any responsibility for slaughtering the calf; but if the officer of the Board of Agriculture or the local authority found any hides unbranded, either in the butcher's possession or in any tanyard, the butcher or the owner of the tanyard ought to have a large penalty imposed upon him. In our view the age limit of twelve weeks on the slaughter of calves ought to be removed, and a limit of twelve months adopted as to branding. In twelve weeks an animal is neither veal nor beef, but it would be perfectly possible that up to twelve months these animals could be inspected by the officer of the Board or the officer of the local authority, and up to twelve months they could be branded.

I do not know that I need dwell upon the evils of an accumulation of calves, but they are very present to us. Two of my tenant farmers have now twenty cows calving every week, and in the Skipton district there are from 40,000 to 50,000 calves bred every year. I need not point out to you—Lord Harris put the point the other night, and Lord St. Audries put two or three practical points also—that an over-accumulation of animals on land which cannot keep them for want of accommodation creates an insanitary condition of affairs altogether, and in some ways this emergency remedy of yours may be worse than anything which exists at present. I may also tell you this—and I say it on my own authority as one who knows a great deal about the land—always riding about, and always talking to stock raisers—that in our part of the country we have no fear of the right number of calves not being kept for breeding purposes. If I may say so, stock rearing is not only the taste but it is very nearly the talent of that district. We have had three or four very fine strains of short-horn blood, but; I need not go into that. We have stuck to cattle-raising, and I believe in that way we are second to none. I believe as a matter of fact that, tempted by the look of things all round and prices being good, more animals are being kept for breeding than there were, and I also hear from my agent that more cattle are being sold in the neighbouring markets for rearing and breeding. I do not want to trouble your Lordships further. I may in the Committee stage have an Amendment to suggest, but in the meanwhile, for the reasons I have given, I cordially associate myself with the Amendment of the noble Lord.

VISCOUNT GALWAY

My Lords, we must all admit the desirability of maintaining the flocks and herds of this country, and at the same time we are perfectly willing to agree to an emergency Bill of this sort being carried. But I rise to bring before your Lordships and especially before the noble Earl in charge of the Bill one or two points which I think, if given some consideration, wilt help to reassure people in the country. It is perfectly well known to all breeders of stock that it is no use keeping cows that you cannot fatten for beef. That has been admitted in this Slaughter of Animals Order. I allude especially to the Channel Islands, Ayrshire, and Kerry breeds. I think it would very much reassure people if they knew that it would he practically a certainty that no Order would ever come out that these animals should be necessarily kept as calves. I think it would he better, after "immature," if the word "male" were inserted, except in the case of the three breeds I have specially mentioned, and I propose to put down an Amendment in Committee to that effect. I am told that in special dairy counties it is very often the custom to use a bull of any description so long as the cow will get a calf. The noble Earl spoke of the desirability of farmers in certain districts buying calves out of dairy districts. What has militated so much against that is that the farmers in the non-dairy districts do not go there as they do not think they can get a calf that is fit to fatten hereafter. I do not know whether it is possible in any definition for the noble Earl to add to the three breeds I have already specified.

We have in this Order itself, if I might call the noble Earl's attention to it, a very curious definition. It says "animals visibly or obviously in-calf." I do not know whether the Board of Agriculture see any difference between the two words "visibly" and "obviously," or whether the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack would like to give a legal interpretation of them. But if I were asked to explain the difference at a county council meeting, I am afraid I could not do so. Non-dairy farmers should be assured that if they buy calves out of a dairy district they will get calves fit to fatten for beef.

The noble Earl said a word with regard to the question of interfering with the flocks of ewes. It is perfectly well known that every autumn a certain number of ewes have to be drafted, and if he will give some assurance that no Order is contemplated dealing with the sale of ewes it will reassure people who are doubting very much whether their flocks may not he interfered with. Certainly it seems to me to be worth consideration by the noble Earl whether, bearing in mind the great specialisation that is in existence with regard to stock-breeding in the different parts of the country, it would not be better for him, instead of issuing one general Order for the whole of England and Wales, to use some discrimination between those counties which are wholly dairy and those which are ordinary farming—mixed arable and grass counties. If the noble Earl gives this point some consideration, and gives some assurance that he will not interfere with the breeding of cattle, sheep, or swine, it would be welcomed by a great many people and have a beneficial effect.

LORD ST. AUDRIES

My Lords, I am sure we have all the same object in view—namely, to maintain and increase the amount of home-grown food in this country. Speaking at all events for the farmers in the West of England, I can assure the noble Earl that we are ready to make any reasonable sacrifice to secure that end. All we ask is that that sacrifice should be justified by most careful considerations. I think we must look at the Order and the Bill together as embodying part of the policy of His Majesty's Government in securing production of home-grown food. With regard to prohibition of the sale of pregnant animals, and the prohibition as to the sale of females, I think that is a wise course. But when we come to the prohibition of the sale of male calves, I am bound to say I do not think the exceptions made by the Order are sufficient. The noble Earl talked about cross-bred calves, to which we have heard reference made in debates several times. These cross-bred calves which come from dairy counties, the offspring of third or fourth cross cows, sired by bulls which are worthless from a beef point of view and are only of any use at all because they are able to get calves, are absolutely worthless for beef. The object of this part of His Majesty's Government's policy is to produce more beef. What is the real economic value of these calves? The most economic view, I believe, is to hang them directly they are born. The next most economic thing to do is to sell the worst of them when they are a few clays old—they will go to Birmingham and be made into veal pies—and to keep the better ones a little longer and sell them for veal. But I can assure the noble Earl that there is no demand whatever for calves of this kind as store animals to make into beef, for the simple reason that they do not pay. They consume more than the beef-producing breeds, they put on flesh very much slower, and when they are slaughtered their meat is of very inferior quality. Really, as regards those particular calves, I do not think they ought to be exempted from slaughter in the economic interests of the country.

Then we come to what the position of the farmer is if you compel him to keep this particular class of calves. There is no sale for them, and two things must happen. In the first place, there will be a shortage of milk and cheese throughout the country; and, in the second place, there will be an increased consumption of grass and of hay. As regards milk, the demand has not fallen off. The supply must be to a certain extent restricted. For instance, we do not get as much milk imported from abroad as we did. It is quite true that a vast number of the male population of this country have gone abroad, but no one will ever contend that that portion of the population was a large milk-consuming portion. They may have consumed other liquids—I dare say they did—but no one will contend that the Army and Navy were large consumers of milk. On the other hand, the unfortunate men who come back wounded from abroad are, and will be, large consumers of milk. Therefore the demand has not gone down, but the supply has been considerably reduced.

Next there is the question of cheese. We are asked to eat cheese rather than meat, so as to economise the meat supply. That is all very well, but if you reduce the supply of milk you reduce the supply of cheese as well. Therefore we are placed in this dilemma. We were asked last autumn by the Government to grow more wheat and potatoes, and I think as a whole the farmers did their best to meet that demand, and they would have done more had the Government guaranteed a minimum price for wheat. However, they did not take that course. But we were asked to grow more wheat and more potatoes, and at the same time we were asked to plough up grass for that purpose. We all know that a great amount of home-grown oats and hay will be required for the Army, and that must mean less production for food for cattle and for sheep. And yet we are going to be compelled to rear more stock. Rearing that increased amount of stock involves a reduction in the supply of milk and of cheese, and therefore we are embarked on a vicious circle.

Each of these agricultural operations is inter-dependent on the other and requires most careful consideration. I am bound to say that the noble Earl seems to me to be a cross between Pharaoh and Aaron. In the character of Pharaoh he orders us to produce beef and stubble; in the character of Aaron he sets up a calf which he compels us to bow down to and worship. Really, I do not think that this policy has been properly thought out, and I am bound to say that I agree with those bodies who have pessed resolutions to the effect that the Order will defeat its own object and ought to be revoked. The noble Earl might revoke that Order quite easily, because this Bill which we are now considering gives him adequate powers to carry out his object.

In carrying out this Bill two things are essential. First, very wide discretion should be given to the local authority; and, secondly, there should be a correct interpretation given to the word "immature." We are not told what the local authority is to be. I presume it will be the county council or a committee of the county council—the Diseases of Animals Act Committee, or some body of that kind—but I would impress upon the noble Earl that in carrying out this Bill it is absolutely necessary to give the local authority wide powers, and for this reason. Their local knowledge and local experience will be of the greatest value in enabling them to enforce the provisions of the Bill in some districts and to exempt from the provisions of the Bill other districts in which the local conditions are entirely different. I should like a definition of the word "immature." I know what the meaning of the word "mature" is. The word "mature" means ripe or ready, not, as many people think, full-grown. In the agricultural sense it means an animal which has come to its best, and which will not pay for keeping any longer. In that sense there are, as the noble Earl said, certain breeds of sheep which come to their best as lamb, and which are relatively more valuable as lamb than they ever would be as mutton. The same principle is true, to a certain extent, of the calves to which I have referred, and of other calves as well. It does not pay to keep them after a certain age, because you are keeping them at a loss to the farmer, and consequently at a loss to the nation. The fact that in two years time they may be inferior beef does not make up for the loss the farmer and the nation sustain because those animals are not sold when they come to maturity; and I think it would be sound economy to give to the local authority—assuming it to be the county council—power to permit slaughter according to their local knowledge and experience.

The noble Earl told us a week or so ago that if t here was a shortage of food in this country owing to his neglect to take precautionary measures, he ought to be one of the first to be hanged. Well, that is an incident which I can assure him we should all deeply regret, and I have not the smallest fear that it is likely to happen. But I would remind him that there is nearly as much danger in trying to do too much without careful consideration as there is in doing too little; and I would also remind him that it is a very difficult thing to carry out a hard-and-fast system with a business like agriculture, which is so dependent upon climate, upon labour, and also upon the fact that unlike other people the farmer has to decide, under unknown conditions of weather and so on, months ahead as to what his policy of dealing with his farm is to be. Interference no doubt is necessary in time of war. We have to submit to interference in many ways which we do not like. But what I say is that any attempt to carry out a hard-and-fast system by a central Committee in London—however eminent or scientific its members may be, or however worthy may be its president, Sir Ailwyn Fellowes—is predestined to be a failure. The only way in which we can increase end maintain the supply of our home production of food is by putting a wide discretion in the hands of our local authorities.

LORD HARRIS

My Lords, I have only one or two words to say. I should hope that Lord Strachie is satisfied with the discussion that has been raised, and that he will not press his Amendment to a Division, because I think no one wants the Bill to be lost—and I fancy that the carrying of the Amendment would kill, the Bill. But I am sure we are grateful to the noble Lord for placing his Amendment on the Paper. One argument that was used by my noble friend opposite I do not quite follow. I understood the noble Earl to say that although calves might not be sold for slaughter there were people in the country who would be willing to buy them for the purposes of rearing.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

Yes.

LORD HARRIS

I do not think that is so. The wording under the Order, or, at any rate, under this Bill seems to me to prohibit the sale of the animal up till twelve weeks old for any purpose whatever.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

No.

LORD HARRIS

Are you quite sure that that is the effect of the Order?

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

Yes, quite sure.

LORD HARRIS

If that is so, it makes a great deal of difference. But as I read the Order it seemed to me that the animal could not be sold at all up till twelve weeks old.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

My noble friend is wrong. I am quite certain of it.

LORD HARRIS

I am glad to hear that. But it cannot be removed out of the area.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

Yes, it can.

LORD HARRIS

Then the Order is very much milder than I had imagined. I am sure the noble Earl will feel that he has a multitude of counsellors, and he ought to be a very wise man after all the advice that has been given him, not only here but in the various bodies he has summoned to his aid. There is Sir Ailwyn Fellowes's Committee, Lord Milner's Committee, and the Development Board which I am aware is seriously discussing agricultural matters. So that my noble friend ought eventually to be pretty sure of the views, not only of practical persons, but also of the theorists amongst those Committees. But I venture to express the hope that at the Committee stage of this Bill the noble Earl will make some provision for laying on the Table of Parliament any Orders that he may find to be necessary.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

My Lords, my noble friend who has just sat down said that I had the advantage of a multitude of counsellors. He was quite right. I think I have had the advantage to-night of a multitude of very good counsel, and I am much obliged to noble Lords for the great contribution they have made to the discussion of what is a very difficult subject, made in each case with real personal knowledge of the matters discussed. I can assure my noble friend Lord St. Audries that he cannot himself be more impressed with the necessity of flexibility in this matter than I am. It is quite impossible to direct British agriculture by any hard-and-fast rule. I can assure him that no member of your Lordships' House can be more sensible than I am of the truth of the doctrine' which he laid down; and if I might be permitted, in the few moments that remain to us, I would go through some of the criticisms which noble Lords have made.

I can assure Lord St. Audries that the Board of Agriculture is in this matter, as every other agricultural body must be, a constant learner. We make no hard-and-fast law of the Modes and Persians. We make according to our responsibility, acting not hastily but after very full consideration and after having been the recipients of an immense amount of advice, what we think is the right Order for the moment. That is how we made the Order to which the noble Lord not wholly objects but to parts of which he objects. But that Order will be under the most constant scrutiny and revision. None of the criticisms or protests winch are sent in are thrown away; they are all considered and weighed as against other evidence we may receive of a different kind. And I would say in answer to Lord Strachie, while am still on that point, that the Advisory Committee contains two or three of the best practical working farmers of the country, not men who may be held to he not drawn from what I may call the "fanner class." I know, of course, whom he had in his mind when he spoke—Mr. Edward Strutt. Although he is one of the best farmers in the country he is not drawn from that class.

LORD HENEAGE

He is one of the best men in the Farmers' Club.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

That is so.

LORD STRACHIE

Is he a tenant farmer?

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

No, he is not; but there are men on that Committee who are tenant farmers in the strictest sense of the term. The Order in question was made after we had been the recipients of requests from an immense body of farmers all over the country, not asking us to do merely what we did, but to go much further. The Order is mild in comparison with what we were asked to do by a great number of people.

LORD ST. AUDRIES

Graziers mostly?

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

Yes, mostly graziers; just as the objectors were dairymen. And all we can do is as far as possible to hold the scales level between the contending interests. Both Lord St. Audries and Lord Ribblesdale alluded to a very important point. It is this, that many dairymen use utterly inferior bulls to put to their cows, and the produce of those cows from such bulls can never be of any value for rearing, fattening, and turning into meat. That is perfectly true. But it is a lamentable fact, and I think it is an extraordinary pity that such bad bulls should be used to such an immense extent as Lord St. Audries tells us they are when the same results from the point of view of the dairymen and much better results from the point of view of the country would be produced by the use of good bulls. Therefore if an indirect effect of the action which we have taken should be to discourage the very bad agricultural practice of using any bull for the purpose of the dairy cow I shell not personally be sorry. But I admit that this does not absolve me front considering the difficulty which exists from the prevalence of that practice. That was the exact case which Lord Ribblesdale meant, and I am much obliged to him for his suggestion. He said that some authority ought to examine the calves and put aside those which could never be of any value to store, and that those should be branded and exempted from the Order and allowed to be slaughtered. All I can say is that that suggestion will be very carefully considered. But Lord St. Audries rather gave us to imagine—I am sure he does not mean it—that the calves from cows belonging to this class of dairy farmers are all from bad bulls. That is going too far, I think.

LORD ST. AUDRIES

I did not mean that. But I saw a resolution passed by the Fanners' Club only last week in favour of using better bulls in future.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

This vicious practice—I think your Lordships will agree that I am not using too strong a term—is happily not universal, and although there may be only too large a proportion of these calves that are not much use for turning into meat, there is a very large number that we have endeavoured to save which are fit by their parentage to become beef hereafter; and that is the exact reason why the age of twelve weeks was chosen. It is true that at twelve weeks the animal is neither veal nor beef; but at twelve weeks it cannot go back to veal, but it may go on to beef. That is the object with which this particular period was chosen. Lord St. Audries will admit, I think, that I have already dealt with his point as to the necessity of exception when I said that I would carefully consider the matter mentioned by Lord Ribblesdale. Lord Galway alluded to the same point, and therefore he will pardon me if I do not repeat myself.

With regard to the meaning of the words "obviously and visibly in-calf," mentioned by Lord Galway, I would say that I am not a Parliamentary draftsman, but I can state what was intended. We are told by veterinary surgeons and by others that there is a moment when no man accustomed to deal with cattle—the farmer, the middleman, or the butcher—has any real doubt as to whether a cow is in-calf or not; whereas in the early stages of pregnancy you cannot he so certain and mistakes might happen with men not so experienced. "Obviously and visibly in-calf" is the legal method of putting on paper what I have told you the veterinary surgeons said.

I pass to the criticisms of Lord Strachie. I have already pointed out that the Advisory Committee does contain an adequate representation of the tenant farmers. I can assure the noble Lord that any such resolution as the one to which he referred, proceeding from the County Councils Association would naturally carry great weight with me. I am myself a member of that Association and know what a great volume of opinion it represents. Also I should regard with the greatest respect any opinion coming from the Council of the Royal Agricultural Society or from the Bath and West of England Agricultural Society. But it is not possible for the Board of Agriculture, any more than for any other Government Office, on the eve of executive action to write to every possible authority in the country and ask them their opinion. It welcomes, and will welcome, all expressions of opinion as from time to time tendered by authorities so eminent. But all it can do is what my pre decessor endeavoured to do—namely, to establish a Committee representative of them all, the existence of which should be known to the whole agricultural public and to which officially any question that arose from time to time could be submitted for advice.

I would like to allude to the point made by Lord Strachie as to the commandeering of hay. It is not strictly germane to the matter under discussion, but it is so important to farmers that I do not like to pass over his observations on the subject. When the War Office first took powers to commandeer hay, opportunity of appeal to the County Court was given to the farmer as against the price offered by the War Office. That was a tribunal not very popular with the farmers. They did not like the bother of going to the County Court; and whereas a great many of them protested vehemently against the price offered, only a few of them entered an appeal before the County Court. The only appeal that has been heard, I may say, went entirely in favour of the War Office. But acting on the representation of the Board of Agriculture, the War Office have now agreed to supplement that procedure, and Committees are being established, one for the South and one for the North of England, consisting of a representative of the War Office, of the hay merchants, and of the farmers—using such bodies as the Farmers' Union and the Central Chamber of Agriculture for the purpose of selection—to whom an appeal may be made by the farmer against the price offered by the War Office. If the farmer succeeds in his appeal to this Committee the War Office will go no further; but if the Committee gives its decision against the farmer, the farmer is still left with his appeal to the County Court if he wishes. I think that disposes satisfactorily of the question of price. But there is something quite as important—namely, whether the hay ought to be taken at all; because, especially in this year when there has been a comparative drought, the old hay as well as the new may be of importance to the farmer, and it is no use urging the farmer to keep more stock if the War Office conies down and makes it impossible for him to do that by commnandeering his hay. Therefore I am urging on the War Office that the farmer should have au appeal also against having the hay taken at all, so that he should not be placed in the cruel position of not having all the keep he requires for the winter when he is at the same time prevented by the Board of Agriculture from parting with his stock. The matter is not settled yet with the War Office, but I shall do all I can to that arrangement.

It only remains for me to say that I regret that I cannot accept the Amendment of the noble Lord. As Lord Harris pointed out, to accept this Amendment would mean the killing of the Bill. But although I am not saying my last word now, I should with great reluctance accept any such Amendment in Committee, because I do think that under war conditions it is very necessary that the Board should be able to act promptly and decisively. At all times it will be possible for your Lordships to raise such a discussion as has taken place to-night, and such discussions, I think you will believe after what I have said, will never be thrown away upon me or the Board of Agriculture. We do not profess to be infallible in what is an extremely difficult question. We know how complicated is the whole science of farming, and we shall at all times be prepared to learn by experience, to listen to your Lordships' arguments, and to review the situation and if necessary revise our Orders.

LORD ST. AUDRIES

Could the noble Earl tell us what the local authority is to be?

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

I will give a full explanation in Committee.

LORD STRACHIE

My Lords, as the acceptance of my Amendment at the present stage would kill the Bill—the last thing that I desire—I ask leave to withdraw it now; but I give notice that I shall bring it forward again in Committee.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Then the original Motion agreed to: Bill read 2a accordingly and committed to a Committee of the whole House on Tuesday next.