HL Deb 24 May 1921 vol 45 cc343-59

LORD STRACHIE had given Notice of the following Motion: "That an humble Address he presented to His Majesty representing that the opinion of this House is against the Draft Agricultural Improvements Regulations, 1921, made under the Agricultural Act, 1920, and presented to this House on the 3rd of May last." The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Motion I desire to make is that your Lordships should nullify the Draft Regulations which have been laid on the Table of the House by the Minister of Agriculture. They are, in fact, only a second edition of the Regulations, laid on the Table immediately after the Easter recess, which received so little support that practically without any discussion at all they were withdrawn, and it was intimated, that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture would bring up modified Regulations more in keeping with your Lordships' wishes. I must, however, draw your attention to the fact that the only Regulations which have been left out refer to the formation of silos, the planting of hops, the warping and weiring of land and the erection of wirework in hop gardens. For all practical purposes they are the same Regulations as were withdrawn after the Easter recess. It is very unfair to give these large additional powers to tenants, and to impose large additional burdens upon landowners, especially when it has not been shown that the landowners have not met their obligations in these matters.

The Act of 1920 sufficiently interfered with landlords in the management of their property, and when it was introduced the Minister of Agriculture never said that landlords had neglected their duty, but merely that the Bill was asked for by the National Farmers' Union. During the whole course of that measure through Parliament, the Minister of Agriculture constantly said that he was in consultation with the National Farmers' Union. The object of these Regulations is to give the National Farmers' Union greater control and greater authority than the Act of 1920 gave as regards the management of land in this country. We have, therefore, to consider what is in the mind of the Ministry of Agriculture, and to remember that the Act of 1920 was entirely a one-sided measure in the interests of the National Farmers' Union. It shows the animus of the Ministry of Agriculture in instituting an attack upon landlords in this country.

The Draft Regulations set out various improvements which can be made against the consent and wishes of the landlord, and at the same time the tenant is to have the right to claim compensation for them. What are these Regulations? The first says that a tenant may make cottage gardens. Why on earth is that introduced? Is it contended that landlords have been slow to give cottage gardens to their labourers? Quite the contrary. Landlords have always been anxious to give land to their cottages, and it was rather the tenants who objected that the labourer was getting too much land. The question as to whether land should be added to cottages is surely one which can be left to the discretion of the landlord. The tenant should have no right to interfere in that matter at all.

The next Regulation refers to the improvement of existing roads and bridges. Surely that is a question which may be left to the landlord. A good accommodation road may be quite sufficient for the holding, but the tenant might think it would improve the look of his farm if he had a fine road up to the farmhouse, and in that case, you will be throwing a burden upon the landlord which there is no reason he should bear. Another Regulation deals with the making or improvement of ponds, wells, or works for the supply of water for agricultural purposes, and the making or improvement of water courses for drainage purposes. There again, a tenant may have grand ideas and may prefer a cemented pool rather than the old-fashioned pond which has served its purpose well. This would have to be done at great expense, probably costing £40 or £50 or £100, if it was a large pond. Then the tenant is to be allowed to execute works for the supply of water to his farm. The tenant might want to build a large reservoir, or to lay down a long length of pipes from some general supply of water, all the expense of which will have to be borne by the unfortunate landlord.

Then there is the "making or removal of permanent fences." To my mind that is a very undesirable provision. The tenant might entirely alter the whole character of his holding by altering these fences. He might be a man who likes to use motor tractors for ploughing or for mowing his land, and might like to have twenty-acre or forty-acre fields, instead of merely five-acre or six-acre fields. Surely, the landlord is a much better judge whether, upon the whole, from one period to another, it is desirable to have these fences enclosing small or large fields, and it is not a question upon which a man who simply has the holding year by year has any right to give an opinion, or to say, "I do not like this holding; I am going to alter its character entirely." It has also to be remembered that fences are not used only for dividing fields one from another, but that a great many of them are placed for the protection of stock and cattle. In some eases it might be of great detriment to a farm if a man were to uproot fences intended for the protection of cattle on the holding.

Next, there is the protecting of young fruit trees. This is either a small matter, or else a very expensive one indeed. If it is clone in the usual way, with a little barbed wire and a pole, or two, it is a very small matter. What is the point of making the landlord do it? In the majority of cases I believe the practice is for the landlord to find the materials and for the tenant to provide the labour, which seems to me a very fair arrangement. You might have a tenant taking it into his head to say, "It will cost me nothing when I go, and it is very much simpler and less trouble to order a large number of iron protectors and put these round my fruit trees, and the landlord at the termination of the tenancy will have to find the money." Upon some holdings the cost might be considerable and entirely unnecessary.

Further, there is the question of reclaiming waste land. I have consulted a number of practical men upon this question, and all inform me that it is very easy to exceed the total value of the land in the expense of reclaiming it. I am very doubtful if the noble Earl will be able to tell the House, from any of his experience, where it has been a profitable experiment for any person to reclaim waste land. This waste land would be reclaimed by a tenant who would only have a yearly interest in the farm, and it does not seem fair or right that a heavy expenditure like that should be placed upon the unfortunate landowner, who might possibly be a very poor man and who would yet have to make it good upon the termination of the tenancy.

There is also the question of sheep dipping. It is provided under these Regulations that the tenant will have a right to go to the landlord and say, "I want accommodation put up; I have a large flock of one or two hundred sheep and I want this accommodation upon my own place, instead of having to go to the trouble of moving the sheep elsewhere." The landlord may refuse and say, "It is very likely you may give up keeping sheep shortly, or that I may have a tenant to follow you who only goes in for feeding cattle, and if I put up this accommodation it will then be entirely useless." The tenant, however, might still insist upon having what he wanted. That is a very great hardship indeed, especially in these times when we are told by such experts as Mr. Mansell—and I am sure the noble Earl representing the Ministry of Agriculture will recognise that this gentleman is a great authority upon sheep—that the raising of sheep in this country is likely to be very much decreased in the future, because it will not be profitable to keep flocks. Nevertheless, the landlord will be saddled with this expense.

I notice, too, that in these Regulations, unlike those which were withdrawn, there is no limit to the cost of these improvements. What is paid will be at the sweet will of the tenant. I know, of course, that the noble Earl will very likely reply that I am forgetting to mention that there would be an appeal to the agricultural committee, and that if the landlord does riot approve of these improvements which his tenant. wishes to make at his expense he can appeal to the agricultural committee of his county. Of whom does the county agricultural committee consist? One might say that it consists practically of three bodies, the landlords, the tenant farmers, and a majority of gentlemen appointed by the Ministry of Agriculture. That is to say, the Ministry of Agriculture and the National Farmers' Union, representing the tenant farmers, will, between them, have a majority on every agricultural committee. That was very well shown from the fact, as I am informed, that, when the Advisory Committee, which sits at the Board of Agriculture and which is supposed to give such good advice to the Minister of Agriculture, came to consider this question the other clay, what happened was that the landlords were as usual in a hopeless minority, and, though they fought and protested, they were defeated practically by the officials of the Board of Agriculture.

As I asked at the beginning, why should there be all this interference? During the war we had a great deal of it, but we all thought that when the war was over we were going to be left alone and allowed to manage our own affairs in our own way for the benefit of the country. I do not think the noble Earl will venture to say that, either during the war or after, the landlords of the country did not play up thoroughly make every sacrifice and every expenditure, so far as they were able, to develop the agricultural resources of the country and to provide more food, very often to their own detriment. The noble Earl will say, "Appeal to the agricultural committee." This appeal to the agricultural committee, as I have said, is not satisfactory; but even if it were satisfactory, I would ask your Lordships why, in questions of this sort, the landlord, who is the permanent owner of the land and wants to see it equipped as well as possible, should not be allowed to decide for himself. In these days men do not own land simply for the pleasure of it, or for the sake of sport, or for political reasons. Like other people, they hold it as a business proposition and carry it on in the best possible manner.

Why should there be all this undue interference by the Ministry of Agriculture or by the county agricultural committees? One reason, no doubt, is that the Ministry of Agriculture is always increasing the number of its officials. I have lately seen a Return which shows that since last March the officials of the Board of Agriculture have been increased by thirty-nine. These Regulations will mean that there will have to be more officials to go into the questions that will be raised. The actual members of the county agricultural committee cannot be expected to go from one end of the county to the other inspecting all these improvements, such as the construction of a small place for sheep dipping or the deepening of a well. It will have to be done by officials who have to make a report. These officials must be paid and their travelling expenses must be provided. Like every proposal made by the Government at the present moment, this means more expenditure and the appointment of more Government officials. I believe the country is thoroughly sick of that process. This is only one instance of the way in which we are being dominated and interfered with by officials in every possible direction.

I have hitherto referred mainly to the larger landlords, but I would like to make particular reference to the smaller landlords. Large landlords, like many members of your Lordships' House, may not find it a very serious matter if they are ordered by the county agricultural committee to find one or two or three hundred pounds for improvements, but it would be a very different matter to those men who have bought a small amount of land and who are occupying owners. In the case of the death of these men, great hardships might be involved. In any case it would be very hard if such charges were put upon them and the management of their property were interfered with, when, being farmers themselves, they probably know best how to manage their land. It is very hard upon a small landowner who has only lately bought his land. There is another class of men who are small owners of land; I mean the clergy of the country. It is very hard that the clergyman who lets his land to a farmer should be liable for the heavy expenditure resulting from these Regulations whenever the county agricultural committee approves. He might be liable, for instance, to pay for such an expensive matter as the removal of fences, or the erection of new fences, or for providing for sheep dipping upon his farm. There are many clergy who would be very seriously hit, if not ruined, if they had to make some heavy expenditure upon their tenant leaving.

I would specially make an appeal to your Lordships to disagree with the Regulations on the ground that no case has been shown up to now for making them so soon after the passing of the Act of 1920. Landlords are at the present time a class upon whom almost intolerable burdens are falling. They are very heavily taxed at the present moment for local and imperial purposes. Why should you place heavier burdens upon them? I have only one word to add, and that is to say that I hope the noble Earl will not tell us that these Regulations are agreed to by the Central Landowners' Association and the Land Union. I have no right to say anything about the Land Union, but I doubt whether assent was given by any one other than by Mr. Pretyman in his individual capacity, be- cause I have been told by members of the Union, who are members of this House, that they are not aware of such assent having been given and that they object to the Regulations.

I am sorry to see that Lord Clinton, who is chairman of the Central Landowners' Association, is not in his place, because in regard to that body I can speak definitely. I am a member of the executive of the Association, and I say that these Regulations have never been approved by that body. If Lord Clinton has expressed approval he has simply done so in his individual capacity. I can fairly claim to say, as regards the Central Landowners' Association, which is a very representative body—as representative as the Farmers' Union—that they never have had the question before them, and I know that a large number of members of that Association most strongly object to the Regulations placed before the House. I therefore beg to move.

Moved, That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty representing that the opinion of this House is against the Draft Agricultural Improvements Regulations, 1921, made under the Agricultural Act, 1920, and presented to this House on the 3rd of May last.— (Lord Strachie.)

THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (THE EARL OF ANCASTER)

My Lords, I am sure we have heard with much interest the very forcible speech delivered by the noble Lord, and I think that I shall not be in the least presumptuous in saying that I think he made out a fairly good case. Unfortunately, I do not think he put the whole case before your Lordships. He talked a great deal about the enormous expense to which landowners would be put under these Regulations. I do not think that is the case. In all these improvements which are carried out by the tenant at the tenant's cost, the tenant, when he quits the holding, will not be able to recover from the landlord any of the money which he has spent upon "improvements" if those "improvements" are not improvements at all. For instance, if he has reclaimed waste land on which nothing will grow the tenant will not get a halfpenny. The noble Lord never told us that, arid therefore I think a great deal of the charge which has been made by the noble Lord falls to the ground.

For a moment, before I deal in detail with some of the points raised by the noble Lord, I would refer a little to the history of what has led up to these Draft Regulations being on the Table at the present moment. In the first place, let me say that these Draft Regulations are properly and legally laid upon the Table under Section 15 of the Agriculture Act of 1920, and I would suggest that if that section of the Act is not to be a dead letter it is necessary that these Draft Regulations should be produced. I may add also that inquiries have been received at the Ministry from agricultural committees asking when these Draft Regulations were going to be produced.

I think it would have been more convenient if your Lordships object in tote to these Regulations, as apparently the noble Lord does, to have thrown out Clause 15 of the Act which was passed only a year ago. Your Lordships decided not to do that, and the measure became law. According to the Act, at the beginning of the session Draft Regulations were first of all placed before the Agriculture Advisory Committee at the Ministry of Agriculture. I had not then been appointed to the Ministry of Agriculture, and as I did not know that the noble Lord was going to raise the point that the landlords' representatives on the Committee were out-voted by the Ministry and the representatives of the Farmers' Union, I have been unable to make further inquiries. All I know is that the first edition of these Draft Regulations was approved by the Agriculture Advisory Committee on which the landowners are very strongly represented.

LORD STRACHIE

They are in a minority.

THE EARL OF ANCASTER

That may be so, but they are very strongly represented, and, the Advisory Committee having approved them, these Draft Regulations were laid according to law upon the Table of the House. As your Lordships are aware, Lord Clinton in this House objected to those Regulations, and Captain Pretyman and, I think, one or two other Members objected in another place. It was in order to try to keep the peace and make things go smoothly that the Ministry decided to withdraw the Regulations and consult with those Peers and honourable Members in another place as to which of those Regulations they objected. A meeting was held at the Ministry of Agriculture. Again, unfortunately, I was not at the Ministry at the time; and so I cannot tell your Lordships what happened at the meeting, but I know that two persons, both influential and both members of the Land Union and Central Landowners' Association, and also very well known agricultural members, were present. They were Sir Beville Stanier and Captain Pretyman, and there were two other gentlemen whose names I do not know, but one of whom, I am informed, is the secretary of the Central Landowners' Association. These gentlemen, representative of the landowners' interests, met the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, and went carefully through the Regulations and agreed to amend the old Draft. They stated that they considered the new Draft Regulations which are now laid before the House to be satisfactory, and that they would withdraw all opposition. Of course, it is difficult to consult everybody.

VISCOUNT CHAPLIN

Who withdrew the opposition?

THE EARL OF ANCASTER

Captain Pretyman and Sir Beville Stanier. Lord Clinton was unable to be present at the meeting, but he wrote to the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry as follows:— My chief objection related to the inclusion of silos, but I think in addition some limit should be placed upon the compensation to be paid for land reclamation. His chief objection was as to the formation of silos. I do not see the noble Lord in his place, and apparently he offers no very strenuous objection to the Regulations as they are at the present time. I do not, however, wish to press that point. I am one of those who always will maintain that no body of persons has a right to go and make bargains for other people, and that a Minister has no right to use an arrangement so made as an absolute reason for pressing that a certain measure should pass into law or a certain policy be adopted. It is perfectly open to Members of Parliament— and long may it continue so, both in your Lordships' House and in another place—to state their own opinions, and to express their own opposition and disapproval of suggested measures.

I would much rather base my arguments for asking your Lordships to approve these Regulations on a discussion of some of the main objections to the Regulations. to which Lord Strachie has referred. He has made out a terrible case which ought to make every landowner shake in his shoes. But I rather think he has slightly exaggerated. Let us take these things one by one. First, there is the making of cottage gardens. That is not a very great thing. He seemed to lay great stress upon it, but it might be very important indeed for a tenant, in order to keep a very valuable labourer, to be able to make a cottage garden for him. I suppose it would mean ploughing up a little bit of land and putting a fence round it. It might make the whole difference for that tenant to be able thus to keep a valuable labourer in his service. But, putting that aside, if the making of that cottage garden was no improvement to the farm, there would he no compensation payable when the tenant went out.

The next point is the improvement of existing roads or bridges. Honestly, I think that that is a fair and most necessary provision. It is impossible for a man to farm his land unless he can get across a fen dyke with his wagon, or unless he can get a wagon up a road to get to his more distant fields. I always dislike using the argument, but you have to recognise that there are a certain number of unreasonable landlords. As the law stands at present, an unreasonable landowner could make it almost, if not absolutely, impossible for a tenant to cultivate certain of his fields. Take the case of the improvement of a bridge—the bridge may fall in any day—the improvement of a road. Surely there must be cases where it is absolutely necessary for the working of a farm that such improvements should be made. And the same rule applies here. First, the agricultural committee has to say that it is an improvement, and that it is required; and then, at the end of it, if it is no improvement to the farm, the tenant gets no compensation on going out. Take the most ordinary case. There is a bad field road up to the outlying portion of a farm, a man wishes a better access along this road, and he puts a quantity of old bricks and stones upon it. If, at the end of five, six, seven or eight years, the bricks are all gone and the stones lost in the mud, and there is no improvement, where is the great cost to the landowner? There is not a penny of cost to the landowner.

Take the next case, the protecting of young fruit trees. I should have thought that if somebody planted a young fruit tree, anybody could take measures to protect it. It is no use letting the sheep or the cattle rub against it. It is surely not unreasonable that a tenant, if he has got a fruit tree, should be allowed to put a cradle round it to protect it.

Now I come to what is perhaps the most critical point, the reclaiming of waste land. The same rule applies. If a tenant chooses to try an expensive experiment in reclaiming land, and in the end the land will grow nothing, the landlord will not pay a penny of compensation; and, what is more, if the tenant has to spend a lot of money on such reclamation, the landlord will not have to repay the tenant. He may have spent £100 an acre, but, if the land, after it is reclaimed, is not worth more than 5s. an acre for growing corn or for other purposes, that is the whole (if the amount on which compensation would have to be paid. The whole basis of this matter is not what the tenant spends but what the value of the improvement is to the incoming tenant, and the degree to which the hind is improved.

It is the opinion of the Ministry, and I consider that these Draft Regulations are urgently required in many cases. They are undoubtedly required in cases where a landlord is unreasonable, and where he is making it practically impossible for a tenant to do the most ordinary and necessary things on his farm. But there is one other consideration I should like to put before your Lordships. It is not a legal one—I am only making an appeal to sentiment. In regard to many of these things which may be absolutely necessary on a farm, I have always felt that, so long as you left them in Schedule I, where notice and consent have to be given by the landlord, these things were what might be called landlords' improvements, and that there was a moral duty on the landlord to spend his money in carrying them out. Of course, if they are put in the second class, and it is only a question of notice, I feel that there is not such a moral claim on the landowner to do them. He can turn round to the farmer and say, "Oh, thank goodness, you need not come bothering me about whether more stones should be put on your field road. You give me notice. All you have to do is to get the agricultural committee to say that it is necessary, and you can spend your money, and put the stones on the road yourself." You might say you know that the stones will all be lost in the mud at the end of the year, but that is the tenant's look-out.

I know it is not a legal point; it is only a question of notice and consent, but I feel that, as long as that provision regarding notice and consent is there, the landlord is safeguarded. He is safeguarded in all these different things—repairing of a bridge over a fen ditch, the making of a road, the protection of a few apple-trees that may have been planted in an orchard, or the very necessary thing which the noble Lord made a great point of—the digging of a pond. It is absolutely essential on plenty of grass land where you must have water for the stock, and that the tenant, in order to dig the pond, should have to get the consent of the landowner before he did so—

LORD STRACHIE

I did not say that. I said to have to cement or build one.

THE EARL OF ANCASTER

Oh, but it goes further. How many tenants are going to cement the bottom of their pond? Not very many. I will give an instance which occurred to myself. I was tenant of a farm, and my buildings were short of water. I attempted to get water much nearer to the farm, and in order to do it I cut out a ditch in which there was plenty of water to a smaller pond. I dug about a quarter of a mile to get the water, and when I had spent a great deal of money on it I got a "swallow-hole,'' where some of the limestone comes to the surface, and all the water disappeared into the rock. In circumstances like those, under the Draft Regulations, I should not have got a shilling of compensation, for the improvement was no improvement. I am giving this instance to show that in many instances it is in the landowners' interest that the Draft Regulations as they stand at the present moment should be passed. I most heartily hope that, considering how necessary in certain cases some of these things are, your Lordships will think twice before you throw out these Draft Regulations.

VISCOUNT GALWAY

My Lords, I have listened with great attention to the speech of my noble friend in seeking to justify these Regulations, but I must confess that he has not convinced me as to the necessity or justice of them. I do not rest my remarks for one moment on the question as to whether this is a Land Union Bill or a Farmers' Union or a Landowners' Union Bill, but I ask your Lordships to look at it on the simple plain facts which are before us. The noble Earl has tried to make a lot of what will follow from the fact of a valuer saying that the land has not increased in value. That means that what the landowner may have to pay depends on what the arbitrator or valuer may say. There are one or two points to which the noble Earl carefully avoided allusion. One is the question of the supply of water for agricultural purposes. He mentioned a case in which he tried to tap one pond so that it would run into another—an attempt which unfortunately failed. But he forgot that by tapping the original source—which probably the landowner knew much more about than he did, and would not have allowed him to do it—he ruined it, as he admitted himself.

THE EARL OF ANCASTER

No, I did not.

VISCOUNT GALWAY

It sounded like it. However that may be, it is a very dangerous thing to touch the water supply of a farm and to leave it to a tenant fanner to deal with, because he may not only not get a supply for himself but may ruin the previous source of supply.

Another question to which the noble Earl never alluded is the removal of permanent fences. It is a very dangerous thing for anybody who is there only for a time to meddle with them. Even if it is said to be an improvement to the farm and the incoming tenant wants the fences up, every one of your Lordships knows the cost of putting up fences and also that guard posts and rails have to be put probably on both sides, and netting as well, if it can be got. That is a tremendous expense to place on a landowner, and I say that. on no account ought. permanent fences to be removed without his consent.

Then, in regard to accommodation for sheep dipping, as we all know, sheep dipping is done with a very strong poison, and there is nothing whatever in these Regulations to prevent a careless man dipping sheep wherever he can, utterly regardless of where the effluent goes afterwards. That is a very important point which ought not to be left to the discretion of a not sufficiently scientific farmer.

The noble Lord took exception to the act of your Lordships in consenting to a clause giving power to the Minister to make Regulations at all. I do not think your Lordships thought for a moment that within less than six months after the passing of the Act eight different special things which absolutely require the consent of the landowner before improvements are made, would have been taken out of the Act of 1908. I am sure it will be a warning to your Lordships to take care that such a clause is never allowed to appear in a Bill again. I cannot see why such changes should be made within six months of the passing of the Act of 1920. It seems to me that we are getting sonic extraordinary legislation at the present moment. We know what a great desire there is— unfortunately it is increasing instead of decreasing —on the part of the bureaucracy for an extension of its powers, and I hope that before this session is concluded your Lordships will take some steps to declare that the number of inspectors all over the country should be reduced and that the Civil Service should be very much reduced in all those Departments whose work is increased as the result of their inspections.

I hope that my noble friend will go to a Division in spite of what has been said by the noble Earl, because it is unfair to put these things upon the landowner and it is not consistent with the dignity of Parliament that within six months of the passing of an Act several provisions should be taken out of it which some of your Lordships thought were there for years to come.

VISCOUNT CHAPLIN

My Lords, in asking your Lordships' permission to say a very few words on the Motion which is before the House I feel I ought to make an apology. I have been absent for three weeks or more under medical advice and I have only just. returned to London after a journey of eighteen hours, for which I do not feel much better. But this is a. subject in which I always have been, and always shall be, so deeply interested that I cannot refrain from expressing my objections not only to these particular Regulations but to the system which has been gradually set up under the Ministry of Agriculture and the Coalition Government as at present constituted, by which it is sought, apparently, to make agriculture successful again in this country by constant interference on the part of the Ministry and by Committees and other means with the business of the fanner who knows infinitely more about it than the people who are endeavouring to teach him. I shall not deal in any detail with the speeches that have been made to-night. My objection is taken on broader grounds altogether. When I remember how agriculture was conducted in my earlier days and the unsurpassed magnificence of the farming which existed then in all the great agricultural counties, it almost passes my belief, and seems incredible, that the system that is now followed by those in the Government who are in authority over agriculture should be so constantly pursued.

Candidly, I think very little of the management of the Ministry of Agriculture, constituted as it was last August. On that occasion I had an Amendment on the Paper to a Bill for the prolongation of the Ministry of Food providing that it should be prolonged for one year instead of two. What happened? The present Minister of Agriculture, then Parliamentary Secretary, sent his card in to me and asked me to see him. I consented to see him, as it was my duty. He came over for the purpose of doing everything he could to dissuade me from continuing my opposition and pressing my Amendment to the Bill. What was the chief argument he urged? He said: "You are always so anxious about the number of cattle in this country and the stock popular ion. We have more cattle in this country to-day than we had before the war." I was amazed, because I had a good deal of information on the subject from other sources. I told him I did not believe it, and that he must be mistaken. "Well," he said, "I can only tell you what I learn in the office." Anyhow, I refused to withdraw my Amendment. What happened? That was on August 9 last year. On August 13 the Ministry of Agriculture itself issued. a Memorandum, which I received on the 14th, the day after Parliament adjourned.

What was the purport of it? It was one of their Reports upon the protection of crops and the general state of agriculture, including the quantities of stock of all kinds. The noble Earl, Lord Crawford—who I am sorry to see has just left the House—replied on that occasion to what he called my denunciations of the Ministry of Food and said, in answer to the noble Viscount, words to this effect: "I am able to tell you that we alone, among all the belligerents of Europe, are able to say that our magnificent stock population is as great as, or greater than, it was before the war." Yet what are the facts contained in this Memorandum? First of all, there is an admission of a diminution of ten per cent. in the number of our cattle. The Memorandum also states that the position was the worst on record since 1903.

The Memorandum then goes on to speak of sheep. This is not a laughable matter, but one for serious consideration. The Memorandum shows distinctly that the fall in the number of sheep was 29 per cent. compared with the previous year, and that the sheep record was the worst since figures regarding sheep have been taken by the Agricultural Department. Yet the representative of the Ministry in your Lordships' House came here and told me the story that he did that afternoon, and the Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry came from the House of Commons and sent in his card to me for the purpose of telling me the same thing. And within three days it is contradicted, and these two Ministers are exposed by the Department over which they preside. I do not want to see the farming of this country put into the hands of bureaucratic Government officials. That is not the way in which you will restore agriculture to the position which it formerly occupied, or to place it in the position it ought to be in if it were properly managed. I think I have shown your Lordships that there is good reason to complain of those who profess to be managing this great industry to-day.

LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH

My Lords, after coining from Australia where the State is the landlord in most instances and other landlords are a very small factor, the first thing that strikes me is the enormous mono ant that the English landlord does for an ungrateful tenant. I do not see how such Regulations as are proposed can be anything but detrimental. It is all very well to say that if the improvement is not worth this sum the landlord would not have to pay it, but in the case of a vast number of tenants their great aim and object is to get their property ready for the landlord at the end of the lease. They wish to get all they can out of it before they hand it back. This proposal would enable the tenants to do many acts which, though they might not be of any benefit to the property, would nevertheless be held to be an improvement, and the landlord would then have to pay for the value of the improvement, though it might be no real improvement whatever to the property.

THE EARL OF ANCASTER

That. is not the case.

LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH

It may not be the case so far as the proposition goes, but I know the way that these things work out in practice. In

CONTENTS.
Somerset, D. Allendale, V. Muir Mackenzie, L.
Chaplin, V. O'Hagan, L.
Bath, M. Abinger, L. Phillimore, L.
Bristol, M. Charnwood, L. Rotherham, L.
Camden, M. Clifford of Chudleigh, L. St John of Bletso, L.
Exeter, M. Cottesloe, L. Saltoun, L.
Deramore, L. Sandys, L.
Coventry, E. Donington, L. Stewart of Garlies, L. (E. Galloway.)
Ilchester, E. Fairfax of Cameron, L.
Liverpool, E. Islington, L. Strachio, L. [Teller.]
Midleton, E. Meldrum, L. (M. Huntly.) Stuart of Wortley, L.
Stratford, E. Monckton, L. (V. Galway.)[Teller.]
Yarborough, E.
NOT-COXTENTS.
Ancaster, E. Sandhurst, V. (L. Chamberlain.) Hylton, L.
Bradford, E. Peel, V. Killanin, L.
Clarendon, E. Lee of Fareham, L.
Curzon of Kedleston, E. Annesley, L. (V. Valentia.)[Teller.] Somerleyton, L. [Teller.]
Lucan, E. Stanmore, L.
Onslow, E. Colebrooke, L. Wigan, L. (E. Crawford.)
Vane E. (M. Londonderry.) Faringdon, L.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Motion agreed to accordingly.