THE MINISTRY OF FOOD.

HL Deb 13 November 1918 vol 32 cc46-62

LORD STRACHIE had the following Notice on the Paper—

To call attention to the shifting policy of the Ministry of Food; and to move to resolve, "That in the opinion of this House the regulation of imports and exports and the system of administration of the feeding, grading, and sale of cattle, sheep, and pigs are vitally affecting the flocks and herds of the country and require immediate attention."

The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Motion which stands in my name has been put down in consultation with and with the approval of Mr. Cautley, who till lately was the Pig Controller appointed by the President of the Board of Agriculture. As your Lordships are aware he has resigned. A, similar Motion, having the approval of 150 Members of Parliament, was also put down in another place. That, I think, shows your Lordships that there is a good deal of backing behind it. Owing to the forms of another place, and the fact that the Government have complete control of the time of the House, it was impossible for that Motion to be brought forward, and the only means of bringing it to the notice of the House was by referring to it, as I understand is being done to-day; on the Vote of Credit.

Your Lordships will see that it is a Motion which requires some attention. It may be said that the Ministry of Food have at the last moment, as a sort of deathbed repentance, made a considerable number of concessions, not, it is true, to the House of Commons or to your Lordships' House, but to the Royal Agricultural Society. I understand they have announced that they will do away with the prohibition against the slaughter of pigs under 112 lbs. Your Lordships will see that that is a very considerable concession, because the prohibition grossly embarrassed unfortunate cottagers and small-holders who had no means of feeding these pigs except by purchased stuff. As they were unable to purchase any stuff, certainly after the end of this year, and probably not at the present moment, it was unfair they they should be obliged to keep the pigs alive and not slaughter them. I am glad to think that that concession has been made.

But why is it that these difficulties always have to be pointed out? It always seems that the Ministry of Food can never look forward more than a week or two, and that they are constantly altering their arrangements and Orders. It has been very hard indeed upon the cottagers and small-holders, who were appealed to by the President of the Board of Agriculture last year and at the beginning of this year when he reversed his policy. Previously he said that bacon was not wanted and that nobody should keep pigs. That policy was reversed and pig clubs were started to encourage everyone in town and country to keep a pig. Then they made all these contradictory Orders. To a certain extent, I think the pig question has been met, but that is not the case so far as I am aware with regard to the question of cattle.

There it seems to me a most peculiar state of things has arisen. Cattle were sent to market in large quantities in the autumn, as is always the case, coming off the grass in good condition and fit for the butcher. What was done? These cattle were sent back from the markets and farmers were told that they must keep them. I heard the statement made at a meeting of the Council of the Royal Agricultural Society that one area, which had 12,000 cattle fit for slaughter, was told that the farmers would only be allowed to slaughter 1,000 per week, so that in some cases farmers would have to keep the cattle for twelve weeks. Practical agriculturists know what would be the result of keeping them at home when there was no grass in the pastures, no feeding stuffs, little hay and in some cases very bad hay.

This behaviour of the Ministry of Food is all the more extraordinary when one remembers that they made a promise to the farmers and graziers that there should be two ways of disposing of their cattle. One was that if there was not sufficient demand in the local market the cattle should be sent to distributing markets further away, and the other that if there was any over-supply in the local market the Government would at once buy and, at the option of the farmer, send the cattle back to his farm for a week at the risk of the Government. That promise—which of course was a very reasonable one and one which farmers thought would be carried out—has been broken, and I do not think that my noble friend who is going to reply will say that that is not the case.

I should like to ask my noble friend why it is that at this time, when there is an actual glut of cattle in the country and cattle are being sent back to the farmers, more cattle are allowed to be imported from Ireland into this country? I was told that instead of an average of something like 4,000 cattle per week being brought over, at one time 13,000 cattle were brought. At the same time we are aware that the meat ration had been reduced during the autumn. It seems curious that this should happen, although there was more cattle for slaughter and less meat was allowed to be consumed in this country.

I would also ask my noble friend as regards the American Meat Trust. No doubt he has made himself acquainted with the report of the American Commission. I gave him notice of the various questions that I am putting to him, because I recognise the difficulty of my noble friend in answering for a Department with which he is not connected, and also the difficulty which arises from the fact that he is not even a Minister of the Crown. If the Leader of the House the Lord President of the Council had been here I should ventured to remind him how, when he sat on this Bench, he used to protest even against Court officials representing Departments instead of Under-Secretaries. I do not know what he would have said, if he had been sitting here now, of a great Department like the Ministry of Food being represented by a noble Lord who, however efficient—and we know how efficiently he can speak for it—is not speaking as a Minister of the Crown, as we should like to see him speaking.

I would further ask the noble Lord what arrangements were made with Mr. Hoover regarding the meat and grain in Great Britain; whether any agreement was reached as to the supply of concentrated food-stuffs; whether any supplies were promised, and if so, what such supplies were forthcoming; and if not, why they were not forthcoming afterwards. I would also ask whether it is a fact that flour is being imported in very large quantities and grain in very small quantities indeed. Of course, the House will think that this is very germane to the subject, became if only flour is being imported there are consequently no offals for the feeder in this country. From the American point of view—as good business men (and Mr. Hoover, I suppose is one of the most astute business men in this country or in America)—they naturally wish to send over food and also to keep up a good market not only for now but for the future. That is the reason apparently why we get only the finished article in the form of bacon, or in the form of flour, and not in the form of foodstuffs. We do not get food-stuffs, although we ought to.

Next, I would ask whether it is the case as regards feeding cakes that, while last year there were 350,000 tons in the hands of farmers, there are at present only 70,000 tons? Also, whether he can give us any idea what will be the available supply, for the next three or four months, of cattle cake? The noble Lord is aware it is very important indeed that farmers should have oil cake and also cotton cake. I was surprised to be told the other day that out of the little cotton cake they allowed the Government are making a handsome profit. I was told they are actually making a profit of £4 a ton on all the cotton seed which is brought over and sold to the crushers here. I think the House will agree that this whole question of animals generally and the supply of food for them in this country is not very admirably managed. They have not looked ahead and there have been great difficulties placed in the way of agriculturists in this matter. And, of course, what we have always been met with in the past was the argument "We must break our promises; we admit it is a great muddle, and there are difficulties to the farmers, but you must not mind, because we are at war." Fortunately we are now no longer at war, and I hope the Minister of Food, and certainly the President of the Board of Agriculture, will do what they can and let farmers know exactly where they are.

There would not be such complaints of the Board of Agriculture and of the Ministry of Food if farmers had been kept well informed ahead of what was likely to happen. What they dislike is this constant change and alteration. I wish to point out to your Lordships' House that not only is there a difficulty with regard to food and feeding of cattle, but if you allow to go down our stocks of cattle and sheep in this country, it will be a very serious thing—that is, to reduce our breeding flocks and herds—because the tendency, as we know, under these difficulties is to slaughter both sheep and cattle which ought to be preserved for breeding purposes. Moreover, if you diminish them, you diminish also enormously the fertility of the land, because unless you can have an adequate amount of manure you cannot have proper production. Artificial manures are all very well in their way, but they can never replace the manure of cattle and sheep. While the Government on one hand are urging that more land be ploughed up, they are not giving the farmers the opportunity of treating that land properly.

I do not intend to detain the House any longer, except to ask my noble friend one or two questions of which I have given him notice. One is, whether there has been appointed a new super-grader who controls the decisions of the grading committees; whether the old grading committee consisting of one farmer, one butcher, and one auctioneer, was appointed by an Order in Council which provided that the decision of such Committee was final; by what authority Mr. Clynes's new commissioner overrides the decisions of such Committee. I think the House will see that is a very serious matter, a practical Committee having been set up, that he should appoint somebody else to override the decisions of that Committee.

I also ask another question with regard to freezing plant, because I venture to think one of the great difficulties with regard to bacon and other foods is that the Government did not look ahead and provide freezing plant. Why has the Ministry of Food during the last two years done nothing to set up freezing plant for the purpose of keeping a reserve of meat in the country? I also ask whether, when they did contemplate a little while ago, setting up a cold storage, they abandoned the idea because certain companies interested in cold storage took objection to the Government intervering with their business, as they contended it would do after the war, as the Government storage would be in competition with their own. As regards that statement, I may say it was made by Colonel Stanyforth at a meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society, and appears in their printed Report, as probably my noble friend may have seen. What is the reason that the Foodstuffs Distribution Committee is not under the Board of Agriculture and is under the Ministry of Food, and what was the reason why it was thought that Mr. Renwick, an electrical engineer, was the most fit person to deal with a purely agricultural matter? If it were not that we are accustomed to that kind of thing, it would be very surprising to reflect why an agriculturist was not appointed by the Ministry of Food to look after such an essentially agricultural question as that.

I ask, further, whether it is the case that owing to the representations of the Royal Agricultural Society, barley is to be released to the farmers for feeding stuff purposes, and if so, why there has been this delay in releasing such barley. Will the barley be sold at a controlled price, and will, in their turn, the millers be allowed only to sell it at a small profit on the cost of milling and distribution? That is a question on which farmers take a great interest. Farmers who are not large growers of barley and have to buy, think it is very unfair when there is this fixed price for the finished article, that the millers should be allowed to make a large profit by selling this stuff at a profit in excess of what they would make on ordinary occasions.

I also ask whether it is the case that a thousand tons of feeding stuffs, valued at £l6,000 was stored at Darlington at the cost for putting into storage of 3d. per ton, making a further charge of £12 10s. a week for keeping it there, and further, whether, from being stored too long, the feeding value of the stuff was practically destroyed I have tried to be as short as possible, and to go in details very little indeed, owing to the late hour of the night, but I think your Lordships will agree that this is a very important matter indeed, the matter with regard to our food stuffs for the stocks in this country, if we are to be self-supporting. Therefore I have ventured, even at this late hour, to go into this question shortly, and move the Motion standing in my name.

Moved to resolve, That in the opinion of this House the regulation of imports and exports and the system of administration of the feeding, grading, and sale of cattle, sheep, and pigs are vitally affecting the flocks and herds of the country, and require immediate attention.—(Lord Strachie.)

LORD BLEDISLOE

My Lords, the noble Lord has moved what is, in effect, a vote of censure upon the Government in respect of its food policy. He has at the same time addressed to me, or rather to the Government for whom it is my business to reply, certain questions, which I propose to reply to, to the best of my ability. I may, perhaps, say it is by no means the first time that the noble Lord and I have crossed swords across the floor of a debating chamber; and on many an occasion in another place, when our positions were reversed and I was the interrogator, I am afraid his replies failed altogether to carry conviction to my mind; and I fear it is just possible that on this occasion my replies may have a similar effect upon his mind. But at least I hope that I may be able to convince your Lordships' House that the alleged shortcomings of the Ministry of Food, if shortcomings they have been, are of a comparatively venial character when contrasted with the acknowledged benefits which that Department has conferred upon the country.

The questions which my noble friend has addressed to me are of a varied character, and I will endeavour to reply to them seriatim. The first I understood to be as to what arrangements His Majesty's Government made with Mr. Hoover regarding the supply of meat and grain for Great Britain. The arrangement was of a very indefinite character, and was, broadly, to the effect that owing to shipping tonnage and the difficulty of carrying food from any distant part of the world, North America, and particularly the United States, should furnish as much meat and as much grain as they possibly could. The noble Lord asks specifically what arrangement was made with regard to concentrated foodstuffs for farm stock. No specific arrangement was made with Mr. Hoover on this subject while he was on a visit to this country, but at a meeting of the Inter-Allied Food Conference, on which America was fully represented after he left, there was an agreement arrived at to allocate no less than 1,700,000 toms of animal food-stuffs, consisting of maize, oats, and cattle cake—maize to the extent of 750,000 tons, oats 500,000 tons, and cake 450,000 tons. I can only observe, when the noble Lord says, and truly says, that these anticipated supplies have not been forthcoming—and in fact they have not—that there was undoubtedly a serious miscalculation made as to what the available resources in animal food-stuffs of the United States were. There is no doubt, also that they very materially underestimated the food requirements of their own Army. Those are the only reasons that I am able to give to your Lordships for the fact that this anticipated food for our animals which was to come from the United States has not come to hand to a greater extent than something like 20,000 tons. I propose, if I may, to revert to that matter later, because I shall be able to give a comparatively reassuring statement to the House on the matter.

The noble Lord asked me as to whether there has been appointed a super-grader who controls the decisions of the grading committees, and whether the old grading committees, consisting of one farmer, one butcher and an auctioneer, were appointed by an Order in Council which provided that the decisions of such committees were final and by what authority the Food Controller's new commissioner overrides the decisions of such committees. The old grading committees undoubtedly did consist of a farmer, a butcher, and an auctioneer, but the constitution of those committees was not part of the Order to which the noble Earl refers. The Order was not an Order in Council but was an ordinary Order of the Food Ministry, and in fact it was so worded as to enable the Food Controller at any time to decide what should be the grading authority; that is to say, what the powers of the grading authority should be, what its constitution should be, and what changes in its constitution should thereafter be made I have in my hand a copy of the Order. I do not know if the noble Lord has studied it, but I think that he will find from it that the Food Controller was fully within his powers under the four corners of that Order in appointing the grading sub-commissioners, as they are called, in order to check the work of these grading committees.

I may say that the losses which resulted from inaccurate grading were becoming very serious and rendered necessary some supervision of the work of the committees. It was therefore decided to attach to the staff of each live-stock commissioner a person experienced in the judging of live-stock, and for that purpose there have been selected what I may call the best class of market dealer, who is fully conversant with the work of both buying and selling live-stock. It is the duty of there men to inspect the records in the different markets, and to intervene only when intervention is necessary under the existing system. If the farmer is dissatisfied with the results of their intervention, the sub-commissioners of grading have power to take over the stock on behalf of the Ministry on a dead weight basis, thus assuring to the farmers the maximum price based on the yield of meat from the animal in question. The result of their work has proved to be so satisfactory that it is in fact intended to add considerably to their numbers, so that the grading at all markets may be subject to systematic supervision.

The noble Lord referred to the question of freezing, and asked why it was that the Ministry during the last two years had done nothing to set up freezing plants for the purpose of keeping a reserve of meat in the country, and stated, in a later part of the question, that it was in fact contemplated, but that the idea was abandoned in deference to the objections of certain persons interested in cold storage. Arrangements have been made to freeze and chill in this country as large quantities of fresh meat as possible, but the existing plant is only capable of dealing with a small amount of meat. About eighteen months ago a freezing plant was set up at Cardiff on rather a large scale, and it has not proved altogether satisfactory. It is extremely difficult to obtain the machinery necessary for starting plant of this kind in this country, and it has been impossible to obtain such machinery from abroad. I think that it is only right to mention, in these days when one does not want to waste coal or power of any kind, that in the view of the experts it is a very wasteful system to adopt to freeze and preserve home-killed meat, because it takes from two to three times as much coal and power to freeze meat as to store meat already frozen. Investigations have been made as to the capacity of the existing freezing and chilling plants in this country, and fresh meat is in fact now being put into, chilling chambers wherever possible in order to postpone its consumption for a few weeks during which this unfortunate glut is likely to obtain. It is anticipated that in this way it may be possible to freeze from 4,000 to 8,000 quarters weekly, and to chill about the same quantity. This would mean that at least 56,000 beasts could be disposed of during the next three months. This will materially assist the general situation, although the shortage of labour also presents considerable difficulties. In this connection I may mention that the Ministry of Food have suffered very much during the last ten months owing to the conscription for the Army of such a large number of slaughter-men. An appeal has been made to release the slaughter-men now in the Army for this purpose, and there is every reason to believe that at an early date a much larger number of slaughter men will be available for carrying on this work.

It should be mentioned that the approximate amount of refrigerating space and cold store space throughout the United Kingdom is at present no less than 36,500,000 cubic feet. The scheme which the noble Lord said was abandoned owing to consideration for the trade interests of a certain company, was for the creation of accommodation in various parts of the country for the storage of refrigerated produce, and not for the actual freezing of the produce itself. This proposal, I can assure the noble Lord, was not abandoned in consequence of any request from the trade, but was solely on account of shortage of labour and materials.

Then the noble Lord asks why the supply and distribution of feeding stuffs are not controlled by the Board of Agriculture, but are controlled by the Ministry of Food. The answer to that is that, in the first place, the domestic edible animals of this country provide a very large proportion of our food supply, and their maintenance, therefore, is of vital concern to the Food Controller in whose hands the administration of the food supply must necessarily rest. Secondly, they compete with human beings for a very large number of feeding stuffs, particularly barley, oats, wheat, and indeed to some extent the offals of these cereals; and, thirdly, the importation of all feeding stuffs is made by the Ministry of Food, and, as the purview of the Ministry extends over the whole of the United Kingdom, it is obviously desirable that the distribution of feeding stuffs should come under the one Department which can control them wherever they are available rather than under a single Department having a very limited control, as any one of the Departments of the Board of Agriculture, of course, has I do not know whether the noble Lord considers that it would be desirable to put the control of animal feeding stuffs under the control of the Board of Agriculture in England, but I am quite sure that, if such a course were taken, the Scottish Board of Agriculture and the Department of Agriculture in Ireland would have a good deal to say.

As regards Mr. Renwick, he is not an electrical engineer; he is a commercial man of very wide business experience as an organiser and administrator. The late Lord Rhondda appointed him to this particular task, not as an expert on feeding stuffs, but owing to his exceptional capacity as an organiser and administrator—and he was well acquainted with his work. It is perfectly true he is connected with the supply of electricity. He holds some very important office in connection with the London electrical supply—I forget which—and he is also chairman of the Provincial Electrical Supply Association of the United Kingdom, and the importance of the work of those two bodies has recently grown to such an extent that he has resigned his position at the Ministry of Food quite recently to resume his former work.

The noble Lord referred to the release of barley for feeding stuffs. I notice that the noble Lord asked a question of me just now as to whether there was a year ago 350,000 tons of cattle cake which has now been reduced to 70,000 tons only. That is perfectly true. There is at the present time about one-fifth of the cattle cake in the country that there was a year ago. But I may add in passing, for his reasurance, that under a scheme to which I am about to refer briefly it is estimated that that amount will shortly be raised to something like one million tons.

LORD STRACHIE

Will there be an assurance that the millers will not be allowed to make an excessive profit on the barley which is released?

LORD BLEDISLOE

I am glad the noble Lord has reminded me of that. The noble Lord is referring to barley specifically. It is not expected that barley will in fact, be passing into the mills for conversion into flour for human consumption. An arrangement has now been made by the Ministry under which farmers will be allowed to retain 20 per cent. of the barley grown on their farms, and the balance they must place at the disposal of the manufacturers—the maltsters and the brewers—and in the hands of certain dealers who will put them upon the market for the purpose of feeding stuffs as animal food. The question of the millers' remuneration will not arise in connection with barley, but in the case of all these middlemen interests through whose hands barley will pass there will, in fact, be a limited amount of profit permitted for them to take. With regard to the other point raised by the noble Lord they will not in future be permitted to mix adulterants with the barley or other grain that passes through their hands. If they attempt to do anything of the sort or sell a worthless product at more than the aggregate value of its constituents they will be prosecuted and severe penalties imposed.

As regards the question about the storing of certain cake at Darlington, the question was as to whether 1,000 tons of feeding stuffs, valued at £16,000, was stored at Darlington, whether the cost of storage was 3d. a ton and a charge of £12 10s. a week was made for keeping it there, and further whether, from being stored too long, the feeding value of the stuff was practically destroyed. I do not know what basis the noble Lord has for this suggestion, but, at any rate so far as I can obtain any information from the Ministry, there is no ground for his suggestion. Only 100 tons of cake appears, to have been stored by the Ministry at Darlington. Rent at 3d. per ton per week is being paid to the firms who are storing the cake on behalf of the Ministry, and this is the only charge that has been paid. The cake was stored on August 31 and was last inspected on October 15, and the report then made was that the cake was in perfectly good condition. Twenty-six tons of it have since been released, and no complaint has since been received by the Ministry that the cake is out of condition or has deteriorated in any way whatever.

The noble Lord asked a question with regard to the representations made by the Royal Agricultural Society. I should like to say, in passing, that the Ministry is under a debt of considerable gratitude to the Royal Agricultural Society for the very valuable advice which its Emergency Committee has given from time to time with regard to agricultural matters. But I should like to assure the noble Lord that it is not only in consequence of what I may call "ginger" being applied by the Royal Agricultural Society that the Ministry of Food have taken the line—shall I say have mended their ways?—in the direction that the noble Lord would desire.

I may, perhaps, refer in passing to a very important body called the Central Agricultural Advisory Council, composed of representatives of leading agricultural experts from every part of the United Kingdom, a most authoritative body which sits at least once a fortnight and gives advice to the Ministry of Food and to the Board of Agriculture on matters of Government policy relating to farm economy. That body is presided over by the noble Earl, Lord Selborne. I am one of its vice-chairmen, and a particularly able and vigilant agriculturist in the person of Dr. Charles Douglas is the other vice-chairman. All of us are appointed not by the Ministry but by the farmers themselves; and I assure your Lordships that a very searching investigation and scrutiny is conducted on the occasion of every one of our meetings into the policy, or proposed policy, of the Ministry as affecting British agriculture.

THE EARL OF SELBORNE

Hear, hear.

LORD BLEDISLOE

It is perfectly true that very often suggestions have been made at meetings of that Council which the Government have found it impossible to carry out; but I am bound to confess—and I fancy the noble Earl will support me in what I am about to say—that the Ministry of Food have put an extraordinarily good case when such criticisms have been brought forward. Their very able officials have frankly stated the difficulties which the Ministry has to face; and in every case where the farmers on that Committee have not been satisfied with the assurances which the officials of the Ministry have given, I think they would be the first to admit that it is not the isolated policy of the Ministry of which they have to complain, but the fact that, in acting their part in the national administrative machine during a time of extreme emergency, what the Ministry would desire has had to give place to what either other Departments or the interests of the other Allies, render more important from a purely national standpoint.

It would be wrong for me to take up the time of your Lordships' House, but I think I ought to say in connection with this particular Motion that, in view of the extraordinary difficulty during the last three or four months of harmonising all the essential interests of the various Allies in the course of pooling all our resources, agricultural, financial, and shipping, and in order moreover to give priority to those war commodities which were most essential to the early termination of hostilities and the winning of the war, that the charge which the noble Lord brings against the Ministry—that of vacillation—is, so far from being a charge of which we have reason to be ashamed, one on which I think we have reason to pride ourselves. The noble Lord founds his vote of censure upon alleged shifting, or vacillation, in the food policy of the Government. But surely there are conditions in which vaccillation of policy is a positive virtue, in which consistency would be a mere fetish if not an unpardonable crime. If ever these conditions had existed, surely they have existed during the past seven months. Vacillation in policy is the necessary consequence of vacillation—fluctuation if you like—in the fortunes of war.

Seven months ago, in the month of April, the unexpected violence and success of the German advance threatened the occupation by the enemy of the Channel ports. Since that time every effort has been made to bring over American troops, their equipment, their munitions, and their food. To do this no less than 3,000,000 tons of shipping previously allocated to, or earmarked for, food, including animal food-stuffs, for British consumption has been transferred to the carriage of American fighting material. And who, in the light of the experience of the last four week—including the historic occupation of Sedan by American troops—will say that this policy was wrong? The Government shifted its policy—I accept the noble Lord's term—the Government deliberately shifted its policy, When last Spring the ranks of the miners, of the munition workers, of the farm workers, and of the slaughtermen—to whom I have referred—already seriously thinned, were further depleted in order to meet the requirements of the Army. In my own special sphere of food control—that of the direction of the supply and distribution of sugar—I had last Spring after consultation with my Commission, to decide most reluctantly to abandon several hundred thousands tons of cheap sugar of high quality in Java owing to the length of the voyage, and to buy at three times the price sugar of lower quality from Cuba and other Western sources of supply. It was a shifting policy; but there would not be an ounce of sugar in the United Kingdom to-day if it had not been adopted under the shifting circumstances.

Surely the victorious cessation of hostilities has to some extent taken the sting out of the noble Lord's Motion. It has shown the need, if I may say so, for observing a due sense of proportion in this matter of war time requirements, and has emphasised the importance and the true economy of giving priority, amid conflicting claims, to the vital needs of the armed forces of the Allies. But in saying this I should like to be perfectly frank with your Lordships' House on this the first occasion that I have had the honour of addressing it.

Several NOBLE LORDS

Hear, hear.

LORD BLEDISLOE

I have never disguised from myself, and I will not disguise from this House, the grave risks to the future of British agriculture which might have resulted from the continued serious shortage—throughout the coming winter and the following spring, owing to the exigencies of the war and to the steady curtailment of our shipping—of concentrated animal feeding stuffs. I travel the whole way with the noble Lord when he adumbrates the possible—aye, the probable—dangers which might accrue to British agriculture assuming that this continued shortage were to exist over a prolonged period. The absence of sufficient animal food means necessarily a reduction in our flocks and herds. These have been, we all admit, the sheet anchor and backbone of British agriculture for the last thirty or forty years; and what is more, during the first two years of this war there would have been a meat famine but for that fact. Also this country has been undoubtedly the store-house of animals of the highest quality in order to feed the requirements of the whole world in the matter of the livestock they required, possessing the constitution which for some reason the climate and the soil of this country appear able alone to provide. But the most serious result—and I am glad the noble Lord emphasised it—would have been, as the result of this policy, had it been continued, the undoubted less of fertility to our increased arable area in consequence of the lack of farmyard manure. The noble Lord is perfectly right in saying that you cannot replace with artificial fertilisers—which are all too scarce, and which will be scarce for years to come—farmyard manure; its mechanical value alone is of enormous importance in maintaining the standard of fertility which we must maintain if we are going to justify the increased arable programme which this war has forced upon us.

Having said this, I hope that this House will admit that the Ministry of Food and the Food Controller, who have had an enormously difficult task during the last few months, and who, if I may say so, fully share the standpoint which the noble Lord has put forward and fully sympathise with the interests, both present and future, of the agricultural community—will admit that in face of the call made upon the very limited shipping resources of this country for needs even more paramount than those, for the moment, of the agricultural industry, have come out of this difficult period with credit to themselves and as events have fortunately turned out with no very serious risks to the future of our greatest industry.

LORD STRACHIE

Will the noble Lord answer my question, as to why there was such a large increase of Irish cattle allowed?

LORD BLEDISLOE

I have made inquiries on this subject, and I learn that the Order which was issued keeping back matured cattle from British markets, in order to maintain the present ration of meat, if possible, over the spring months of next year, applied equally to Ireland as to Great Britain, but for some reason or other the shipping companies did not carry out their instructions for something like a fortnight after the Order was issued, with the result that in the interim a certain number of Irish cattle came over and appear to have been given a preference in this country.

LORD ST. LEVAN

My Lords, I wish to ask my noble friend one question about the reply which he has just given. He said that the profits of the middle-men who were furnishing feeding stuffs to the farmers were going to be altered. I have information to the effect that while farmers have been selling their corn—wheat and barley—for £16 and £17 per ton, the feeding stuffs have been sold back to the farmers at £23 and £25 per ton. I do not suppose he is able to give an exact answer to my question, but if he can give some assurance that the profits which the middle-men will make on the corn will be a great deal reduced from that figure, it will be very welcome news to the farmers, who feel very deeply on the subject.

LORD BLEDISLOE

If I understand my noble friend Lord St. Levan aright, he is referring to the same point as was raised by Lord Strachie before, and I think I said, and I should like to repeat it, that an Order is in contemplation which will put a stop to all this profiteering on the part of these middle-men interests, and to the incorporation into mixed foods of worthless ingredients sold as a compound mixture at a far higher price than the value of the constituent.

LORD ST. LEVAN

I understood him to say that, but does he say that they will not be able to charge £23 for corn for which they paid the farmer £16?

LORD BLEDISLOE

I think that necessarily follows.

On Question, Motion negatived.