§ LORD STRACHIE rose to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture if he will state the reasons why he declined to sanction the County Council of Somerset bidding at the Compton Martin Estate sale on Wednesday last to enable them to provide small holdings; and to move for Papers.
§ The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am very sorry that I have to trouble your Lordships with this question at this time of the night, but I am obliged to ask it because three weeks will pass before I shall have another of opportunity, and it is a question which is exercising very much those in that part of the country which I represent upon the county council. I have interviewed applicants for the very pieces of land which the Board of Agriculture has refused permission to bid for. I am asking the noble Lord the President of the Board of Agriculture if he will state the reasons why he declined to sanction the County Council of Somerset bidding at the Compton Martin sale on Wednesday last to enable them to provide small holdings There was a large sale at Compton Martin on that day of nearly 1,000 acres, and the county council was most anxious to bid for a large number of the twenty-six lots offered for sale. I understand—the noble Lord will correct me if I am wrong—that the county council was forbidden to bid for this land, although they had made a most careful valuation, as we always do in our county, of the price that should be paid by the county council, so that the men would be able to pay a fair and adequate rent upon the money borrowed for the purchase.
§ In this particular instance, in which we were not allowed to bid at the auction, 1036 there were fifteen lots of a total of 83 acres that were sold for less than the county council had valued them at, showing that the county council would have been well within their estimate had they been allowed to bid. The valuation of our county council is always very conservative, and is always tested by the Chairman of the Small Holdings Committee. When I was Chairman of that Committee of the Somerset County Council I always went into every valuation myself, and constantly reduced the valuation of the official valuer, and I have no reason to believe that my successor is not equally careful. I find in the list given me of the prices realised at this sale that where our valuation for some lots was £600 the price realised was only £500, and that where we valued at £500 the amount at which the land was sold was £440. Again, when we valued at £450 the price realised at the sale was £346. Unless, therefore, the President of the Board of Agriculture can put a different complexion on the matter, these figures show that the County Council of Somerset has been deprived of making a very advantageous purchase, and has been prevented from providing men in the County of Somerset with small-holdings which they are very anxious to get.
§ I may say that we have applicants for all these lots ready to take them up at an agreed price. I have interviewed some of the men myself, and they are practical men, and the sort of men we want to put on the land. It came as a surprise to me, and I believe to others in my county, when our desire to bid at the sale was vetoed by the Board of Agriculture. We are always being told that the Government is so anxious to establish not only soldiers on the land but to increase the number of smallholders, and give employment on the land to a large number of men. I could go further into this question, but I will not trouble the House at the present moment. I only hope that the noble Lord will be able to give me a full answer and will clearly explain why the County Council of Somerset was prevented from embracing so excellent an opportunity of putting a large number of men on the land on advantageous terms.
§ THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (LORD ERNLE)My Lords, this question is in the main one of time. The Beard of Agriculture has to exercise decision in this matter. 1037 Whenever land is submitted we are entitled to receive from the county council full information as to the nature of the land, as to the number of applicants for small holdings, and as to the rents which they are likely to pay. The sale was held on May 28. On May 26—that is to say, On Monday—we heard at the Board for the first time from the county council that such a sale was in contemplation. On May 26 we received the printed sale particulars, with no intimation which of the hundred lots contained in those sale particulars the county council intended to bid for. On May 27—barely twenty-four hours before the sale took place—we received from the county council a selection of twenty-six lots, together with a valuation which had only been made the previous Saturday, and by telegraph—a valuation from our own valuer who for the first time was able to value on Monday, May 25.
In those circumstances the officials of the Board did what I think they were decidedly justified in doing. The sale came up to us in this form. The land had been bought about a year ago as a whole. It was put up by a land speculator who had plotted it quite irrespective of the holdings, and we had to consider that we were asked to buy it at retail prices in those circumstances, with twenty-four hours' notice.
Another point which certainly weighed with the officials was this, that the holdings were plotted for smell holdings. The county council therefore was going to bid against the very class it wished to encourage. We had no information whatever from the county council that there were ex-Service men bidding or likely to want small holdings in that locality. We had no information what rent they were prepared to pay, and on the valuation it appeared that we should have to pay charges for the capital raised to make this purchase, of £500 a year for the land alone, without our spending a penny upon equipment or adaptation.
In those circumstances and in the total absence of the information which we had a right to demand from the county council the officials refused to sanction, and I must say that their proceeding was perfectly justified. What makes the case unfortunate for the noble Lord himself is that I understand that some time before he had called the attention of the county council to this coming sale, and had stated the particulars which he stated to-day. 1038 Why there was this delay in inspecting the land only for the first time on May 24 to see whether it was suitable, and in valuing it only on that same day, and then transmitting the information to us at that extremely late date, I really cannot say. But I do not think the blame is attached to the Board of Agriculture, but rather in this matter to the county council.
§ LORD STRACHIEMay I at once my that after this statement of the President of the Board of Agriculture I fully admit that, on the face of it, it was quite reasonable for the Board to refuse, having so little information before them. But, as the noble Lord says himself, I had seen some of these men a long time ago and written to the county council about it; therefore I naturally thought there was no delay, and I quite appreciate that it was unreasonable to ask the noble Lord to make up his mind in such circumstances.