§ LORD STRACHIE rose to call attention to the trading accounts of the Ministry of Agriculture referred to in the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General, 1921; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I want to draw the attention of the House to the trading accounts and balance sheets presented to the House of Commons by the Auditor General concerning commercial services conducted by Government Departments up to the end of March, 1921. It is a very ample document, but I wish to refer only to the question of agriculture.
§ My attention was drawn to this very valuable document by a statement of the Minister of Agriculture regarding the farms conducted by the Ministry. He said that the Ministry of Agriculture had three amble dairy farms, and that from 1920 to 1922 the aggregate loss on those farms was £6,631. In addition to that, he stated that there were six other arable dairy farms of a similar kind upon which, when they were wound up in their initial stages, there was a loss in 1920–21 of £6,569. That certainly discloses a most unpleasant state of things, and shows what a mistake it is—and I think the noble Earl who represents the Ministry of Agriculture will be inclined to agree with me—to attempt to do farming from Whitehall. I shall have something to say about that later, but for the moment I wish to ask him whether it is the intention to give up the farms upon which, 255 during the last two years, the Govermnent have lost £6,631. I have not been able to discover what is the acreage of these farms, but I imagine that it is not very large.
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I notice another curious matter in this Report. I refer to the Manor Farm, Cottesford. The noble Earl will tell me if this farm has been given up. It is a farm of 650 acres, of which 518 are arable, and it is stated that it was taken over by the Ministry under D.O.R.A. on July 9, 1918, apparently owing to its improper cultivation. The Report states—
Since March, 1920, the remainder of the foul land has been summer fallowed and cleaned, and the remaining hedges cut and laid, and the ditches thrown out.
It goes on to say—
The Ministry gave up possession of the farm, thoroughly cleaned and in good heart and condition, on February 19, 1921. The cost of carrying out this work was heavy, and the return in the value of the produce was not sufficient to meet the expenditure.
There is a loss on this farm of £4,636. This seems to me a very extraordinary statement. The farm was given up after a very heavy loss. It would be interesting to know what happened to it, and who got the benefit of the work which was done to put it in a good state of cultivation. The country and the Minister of Agriculture, at any rate, do not appear to have reaped any advantage.
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Next, I should like to draw the attention of the House to another of the Ministry's activities, with the facts of which no doubt the noble Earl is familiar, because, unlike his chief in another place, he is simply carrying on what he did in the previous Parliament. He has now been connected with the Ministry of Agriculture for some considerable time, so that he must have had these questions before him. On page 73 of this Report there is an account of experiments at Methwold in the improvement of sandy land, and of tobacco growing. It is a very extraordinary statement. It says—
The farming of the estate, apart from tobacco experiments, resulted in a loss of £9,337.
I think it would be very interesting to know from the noble Earl whether the Ministry of Agriculture are still carrying on these very expensive experiments.
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I should like to draw the attention of the House to a rather amusing statement which appears on that page—
256
Sheep raising is given an important place in the present system of fainting adopted on the sandy lands of East Anglia, and it was au essential part of the Ministry's experiment to test the necessity and utility of this practice.
It is rather curious to note that statement, for what is the effect of this test?
So far the keeping of sheep appears to be very expensive on this kind of land.
Is it necessary for the Government to spend large sums of money out of the pockets of the people to examine a question of this kind? We were told at the General Election, and we were delighted to hear it, that the new Government would go in for economy, and put an end to reckless expenditure in every direction. I should like to ask them, therefore, what is the use of making these experiments and of trying to teach people how to keep men on land which is useless, making a heavy loss thereby? On this very farm the loss was £9,337, quite apart from the cultivation of tobacco.
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Then there is a very extraordinary statement regarding tobacco experiments—
The working of the scheme up to the 31st March, 1921, resulted in a loss of £1,842, after raising charges for depreciation of equipment, interest on capital—
and so on. They further go on to say—
It is to be remarked that the value of the stock of tobacco on hand is very uncertain and that the figure of £856 is based upon the amount advanced to growers. At the present time the tobacco, in common with all stocks coming forward, is practically unsaleable.
There, again, the result of the experiment was utter failure. We know that there have been cases in Ireland and other parts where private growers have been quite successful in growing tobacco and selling in the market. Apparently, when it is taken up by the Government the result, after money has been advanced, is that the stock is unsaleable and useless. I venture to suggest to the noble Earl that, if it has not been already so decided by the new Minister of Agriculture, this experiment should be scrapped, and the sooner it is done the better, because I think the noble Earl, who, as we know, is a great agriculturist himself, and very successful as regards his own agricultural experiments—
§ THE EARL OF ANCASTERI wish I were.
§ LORD STRACHIE—will agree that it is no use trying to teach agriculturists the elements of farming from Whitehall, and 257 that they resent it very much indeed. The only excuse for these activities—and perhaps this will It, the noble Earl's argument—is that perhaps the late Government were anxious to show the Labour Party and those people who believe in the nationalisation of land, that the State should be the owner and, perhaps, the occupier of all land and the employer of all agricultural labour, how impossible it would be, and how surely it would lead to the bankruptcy of this country, if the State ever attempted to do fanning on a very large scale. If that was the object of the late Government, I have no complaint to make. They have certainly been very successful in showing what a complete failure State farming is. Since that has been shown so clearly, I only hope that the noble Earl, if he cannot undertake to act himself, will at least undertake to represent to the new Minister of Agriculture that the sooner these experimental farms are scrapped the better, and that it should be left to practical men to farm the country, without attempting to teach them their business from Whitehall. I beg to move.
§ THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (THE EARL OF ANCASTER)My Lords, I have no complaint to make that the Motion on the Paper has been drawn in rather wide terms, covering a good deal of ground, and that therefore I was unaware exactly what points the noble Lord was going particularly to raise. In the latter part of his speech, and I think also in the greater part of the middle of his speech, he referred chiefly to experiments. He referred to the question of these experiments being tried on certain farms by the Ministry of Agriculture, and he finished by saying that he hoped that the Ministry would give up these expensive experiments.
I am sorry to say that I am not quite prepared to tell him exactly which experiments we are going to give up. I do not even know that it- has been absolutely decided by the Government what experiments are to be given up. I think the noble Lord will admit that experiments sometimes are valuable, and I think it would be a very great mistake for me suddenly to come down here, or for anybody else to do so, and to say: "We have decided that we are going to try no more experiments, and that we will have nothing more to do with them." Therefore I am afraid I cannot actually 258 tell him what experiments we are going to drop, and I will ask him to give me Notice of any further Question which he may wish to pat on t hat subject.
As regards the general question of farm colonies. I may say that so far the new Government have in no way decided to depart from the policy of their predecessors of curtailing their commitments as far as possible. There is no reason to suppose that they wish to continue those farms which are unprofitable, but, on the contrary, they will try to cut their liabilities as soon as possible. I think the noble Lord may be interested to know the present state of affairs. Since the period covered by the accounts printed by the Comptroller and Auditor General considerable progress has been made in carrying through the Ministry's policy of reducing the number and area of farm settlements. The present position of the land, possession of which was actually obtained by the Ministry, may be summarised as follows: Small holding estates, central farms converted into small holdings, 1,021 acres; land sold or let as ordinary farms, 1,270 acres; settlements transferred to county councils, 2,294 acres. As regards profit-sharing farms:—land divided into small holdings, 145 acres; land sold or let as ordinary farms, 6,214 acres. The noble Lord will see from these figures that we are making considerable progress in curtailing these commitments and are farming as little as possible from Whitehall.
With one thing to which the noble Lord referred I am thoroughly in agreement, and that is that these experiments which have been made of farming from London are certainly very valuable object lessons as regards the nationalisation of land, because here one very strong case is mentioned in the Auditor General's Report. It is that of the Bosbury Farm Settlement. There, although the land was presented to the Ministry for nothing—it is true the land was in a very bad state of cultivation when the present was made—we were unable to show a profit. Therefore I think it looks as if, even if the State were to take over all the agricultural land in England, and although they took it for nothing, it would result in a heavy loss to the State.
There are some other criticisms which I had been prepared to answer, but as the noble Lord did not raise them I will not now deal with them. I only say, as 259 regards the whole of this matter, that it was as t he noble Lord will remember dealt with very fully ill debate last March. There is no doubt that all this work by the Government on these farm colonies has been undertaken when the cost of building, of labour and of equipment was extraordinarily high, and that ever since then there has been a steady fall in prices. If I may say so, the Government went into the farming business at the very worst moment they could have selected. That is a general statement, and although the loss has undoubtedly been heavy I do not think it would be entirely fair to say that the whole thing has been such a complete failure as the figures would appear to show.
Undoubtedly, a very large number of people have been settled on the land through the Farm Colonies Act. At the time when this was started there was a very great demand from all classes of the community that ex-soldiers should be settled on the land, and that every facility should be given to those people who had fought for their country—
§ LORD STRACHIEI have never said a word about the ex-soldiers.
§ THE EARL OF ANCASTERNo, but it is all covered by these farm settlements. They have exactly the same object—that of settling ex-soldiers on the land. A large number of these farms are now let to ex-Service men as small holdings, and I therefore say that although the cost was great, up to a certain extent they have served a useful purpose. I can assure the noble Lord that so far as I am concerned I shall use my best endeavours in the Ministry to secure that expensive experiments should not be continued, especially if they are bearing no good fruit, but I hope the noble Lord will not ask me to pledge myself as to exactly what experiments should be got rid of right away. If he wishes for further information, and will put down another Question. I will do my utmost to reply to him.
§ LORD STRACHIEI did not intend to make another speech, but I must protest against the noble Earl's misrepresenting Inc. My object in bringing this matter forward was merely to show the way in which the Government traded. It had nothing to do with the settling of ex-soldiers on the land.
§ THE EARL OF ANCASTERI am sure I did not wish to impute anything of the sort to the noble Lord.
§ LORD STRACHIEI must protest against the noble Earl trying to draw a red herring across my protest and riding off on another subject. He never attempted to answer my protest about trying experiments with sheep on particular land which people in East Anglia, who knew more about the subject than people in Whitehall, could have told him was doomed to failure. I must protest against the noble Earl's suggestion that I was objecting to money being spent on the settling of soldiers on the land. All I had protested against was the extravagant way in which the Government were carrying on experiments.
§ THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY)My Lords, I am sure my noble friend will recognise that it is exceedingly difficult in the early days of the new Government to give explanations in detail. I would suggest to my noble friend that if he wishes to put a Question involving an answer in elaborate detail he should advise the Minister who is to reply what points he is going to raise. He will then be sure of receiving a very full reply. I hope that in future he will not have to complain for a moment of the absence of a full reply. So far as His Majesty's new Government are concerned I can assure him that we are most anxious to curtail all unnecessary expenditure. All these points will be looked into from that point of view, and wherever it is found that expenditure is not justifiable the noble Lord may take it from me that we shall be most urgent to have it cut down.
§ Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
§ [From Minutes of December 1.]