HL Deb 09 July 1925 vol 61 cc1198-215

LORD HARRIS had given Notice to call attention to the Reports of the Agricultural Tribunal of Investigation, and to ask His Majesty's Government what view they take of the conclusion arrived at on page 98, paragraph 271, viz. "The disadvantages attaching to any further considerable decline in the arable area will be so grave that it will be worth while for the country to pay a substantial price for its maintenance. "The noble Lord said: My Lords, I think it would be almost better if I were to postpone the Question that I have on the Paper. The House is rapidly thinning, and I know that there were quite 'a number of Peers who wished to speak on this subject. I am afraid that I should be so long that I should leave very little time for them, if the House rises, as it very often does, about eight o'clock, and, with your Lordships' permission, I should like to postpone my Question until Monday, July 27, when I understand from the learned Clerk of the Parliaments that it will probably come on first. Does the noble Lord who represents the Ministry of Agriculture approve of that proposal? I gather that he does not. Very well, I will comply with the noble Lord's wishes and will go on with my Question. I will endeavour to be as quick as I can.

I do not think I need apologise to the House for calling attention to the Report to which I refer, even at this late date—for the Report was published, I believe, early last year. In my opinion it is one of the most important contributions that has recently been made to the vexed question of agriculture and it is the most important comparative analysis of agricultural processes in foreign countries as compared with England that I have ever read. In the first place, it is, I imagine, thoroughly impartial and, in the second place, it ranges over a very wide field, embracing a close study of foreign systems as well as British, and consequently it is very useful comparatively and provides elaborate and, I should say, accurate replies to the vague and unfounded accusations which are continually being levelled against British farmers and British agriculture.

I had prepared these remarks before July 2. On that date I read a speech delivered by the Prime Minister, Mr. Stanley Baldwin, which gave me great delight. So far as I remember, this is the first occasion on which the Report of this Agricultural Tribunal has been referred to officially. I might point out that, when the Minister of Agriculture invited several bodies representative of agriculture to meet him and discuss possibilities, the Farmers' Union declined—I thought very unwisely, because they might quite easily have accepted the invitation, subject to the discussion being based upon this Report. They did not do so at that time, but in their final communication to the Minister of a few weeks ago they did include a recommendation that is based upon it. I am not at all sure that I ought not to feel myself complimented, for last autumn at an agricultural meeting I called attention to this Report, and now, whether post hoc or propter hoc I really cannot say, the Farmers' Union takes hold of the Report and brings up a proposal to the Minister. Notwithstanding the Prime Minister's reference to this Report, or to the hook written by Lord Ernie, who I hope may speak on a subject which he understands so well, I think I had better go on with my comments upon the Report, because there are two or three points which the Prime Minister altogether omitted.

In the first place, how did this Tribunal come to be appointed? I think I must ask your Lordships to allow me to read some extracts from its Report because it condenses the argument better than I can do:— We were appointed as the result of a debate in the House of Commons, in which use was made of only the summary conclusions of a well-known report on the comparative output of British and German agriculture. Valuable as these conclusions are, as criteria of national self-sufficiency in terms of power to support life and energy, they are misunderstood entirely if the technical nature of the inquiry is not observed. And it is in order to prevent further currency being given to a wrong interpretation of the results … that special attention has been given to a document whose value, when rightly interpreted, has been recognised. Here is a passage which is very significant:— For a pessimism which is too frequent there should be substituted simply a desire to consider by what further measures we may develop the asset of our land, in order to secure results that are worth the outlay. The fundamental difference between British and foreign agriculture is not the efficiency, but the size of this industry in relation to all industries. It is out of this fact that our special problems arise.

That is how they came to be appointed. Who were appointed? I will give your Lordships the names. They are:—Sir William Ashley, Professor W. G. S. Adams and Professor D. H. MacGregor—all persons of very high station in circles of political economy, but I imagine not closely connected with agriculture, and thoroughly impartial. To help them in their agricultural inquiries they had appointed with them as agricultural assessor Mr. C. S. Orwin. Nov what were the terms of reference? A Tribunal of Investigation to inquire into the methods which have been adopted in other countries during the last 50 years to increase the prosperity of agriculture and to secure the fullest possible use of the land for the production of food and the employment of labour at a living wage, and to advise as to the methods by which those results can be achieved in this country. The terms of reference almost beg the question. They almost assume that the agricultural worker does not receive a living wage in this country, and I venture to assure you personally that that is entirely a mistake.

Those being the gentlemen appointed, and those being the terms of reference, I think I shall be able to show your Lordships how the Report of this Inquiry flatly contradicts the erroneous complaints of inefficiency recklessly spread abroad by persons who know very little about agriculture. I should like especially to refer to speeches made on March 27, in a debate in another place, in which the subject of agriculture came up for discussion, and in which Mr. Snowden and Mr. Lloyd George spoke. Mr. Snowden, in one of those vitriolic speeches in which he indulges, said this: Take the land question. Agricultural authorities stated that ours was the worst- farmed country in the world, and the main reason was that no other country in the world had to hear the burden of an idle landlordism, as this country had to-day. I wonder where the idle landlords are. I do not see them. I see an enormous amount of work, magisterial and administrative, being done by landlords without any pay. Personally I do net know of any idle landlords in my neighbourhood.

Then we know that Mr. Lloyd George cannot touch the subject of the land or of agriculture without making a blunder, and so one expects it of him, and this is what he says: There was no doubt that the agricultural produce of this country could be doubled. That, my Lords, is the grossest plagiarism. Jack Cade was saying it 300 or 400 years ago, and may have said it in the neighbourhood of Limehouse, but this Tribunal will not admit for a moment that there is any justification for these adverse criticisms. I should like to read row something which they say, which I think is very apposite. They say:— The facts do not show that there is ground for depreciation of British agriculture as a whole. It pays wages that are high as compared with those in other European countries; the yield of the area which is under the chief crops compares favourably with that of the areas under the same crops abroad; while the actual decline of the agricultural population, as tested by male persons employed, has not over the whole length of our period of reference been so startling as is often supposed, or so rapid as that of other important European countries. Farmers are not responsible for the natural conditions or the national policies which have affected the form of cultivation that is most profitable; subject to the conditions, the cultivation of the land in Britain cannot be described as inefficient. Considered as a craft, British farming has in its time taught a great deal to other countries; considered as an industrial organisation, it may now learn something in return. My Lords, what has happened? In the years over which the Commission was directed to inquire—something like 75 years—a complete revolution in agriculture has taken place, as your Lordships know. The competition of new countries came in, and Europe had to do something to protect itself. Certain European States did that. They resorted to Protection, and that is all the difference between a good many of them and Great Britain. I will read your Lordships something which is said in the Report as regards the comparison between England and Germany, because Germany, of course, was the comparative basis of this Report. They say this: The upshot of the whole matter, however, is that Germany managed with, the help of its tariff—without asserting, of course, that tariffs were the only cause—not only to maintain its agriculture unimpaired, but to strengthen it in its productive capacity.… It is unmistakably clear that Germany did succeed in keeping its peasants on the land. And to this end it is the consensus of opinion among agricultural economists that the tariff did, in fact, greatly contribute". That is the difference, of course, between this country and Germany, and it is a vital difference.

I should like to read to your Lord ships what Professor MacGregor has to say upon that point. As your Lordships are aware, Denmark is constantly thrust down our throats as a superlative example of the ideal in agriculture, and as something that we should follow. Professor MacGregor says this in paragraph 3, on page 100, of the Report:— With regard to produce, it is important to observe that great misconception exists as to the nature and results of what is known as the 'Middleton Report.' A careless use has frequently been made of the summarised results of this inquiry, so that discussion of the agricultural question has been turned on to wrong lines. These results do not refer to farming efficiencies, but to degrees of national self-sufficiency between two countries, one of which has Free Trade, while the other is strongly protected on all agricultural produce. That is Germany. If the method of inquiry is applied to the two Free Trade countries of Britain and Denmark, no difference is shown between them.… With regard to wages, British agriculture has nothing to lose by comparison with other European countries and in most cases it has much to rain. And they tell us that France is in very much the same position as Germany in regard to Protection.

Turning now to the question of wages, the Tribunal express the following opinion:— in paragraph 264 on page 96 of the Report:— Although our inquiries serve to show that the wages and the hours of the agricultural labourer in this country compare favourably with the conditions in foreign countries, we do not consider that this in any way weakens the case for the establishment of wages boards in this country. The Government have established wages boards: but I am very much afraid they will not find that those hoards are instrumental in increasing the arable area or in encouraging the cultivation of wheat. There are many farmers of poor farms, and even of medium farms, who, as I am sure my noble friend is aware, are unable to pay for any length of time the wages they are at present paying.

There is a further reference to the same subject on page 164 of the Report:— Agricultural wages in Germany during the last part of the 19th century were relatively much lower than in Britain, and the wage-paying large farmer of the former country appears to have had a considerable advantage in being able to secure both cheap and efficient labour. And after making a comparison of the earnings of agricultural and forest labourers in Germany, the Report continues:— These figures at least justify the statement made in our First Interim Report that British agricultural wages are as good as any paid in Europe and better then in most countries I commend that statement to my noble friend the noble Marquess below the gangway.

Then, in regard to the numbers employed upon the land, which is, of course, an important point, and has been made a point of very great importance in all the criticisms that have been directed at agriculture in England, a very close inquiry was made by the Tribunal, the results of which are set forth in the following terms, on page 174:— Two results follow from this study of agricultural employment in European countries. First, the problem of preventing an absolute, as well as a relative agricultural decline, has not been peculiar to Britain, but has been a feature of the economy of nations—such as France, Germany and Belgium—which have, like Britain, the conditions of great industrial development; and even considerable restriction on the import of foodstuffs has not been able to maintain the size of the home industry in terms of employment in other countries as well as Britain. The Report goes on:— … The decline of agricultural employment in Britain is to be spoken of in percentages that are less than is often supposed. It also points out that the agricultural industry in Britain is, by comparison with all other industries, a smaller part of the national life than in the other countries of Europe.

Now, upon all those points—the produce of the land, the wages paid, and the numbers employed—I submit that the methods of comparison which have been applied by the Tribunal, result in the conclusion I have already quoted to your Lordships, which is to the effect that this country need not fear comparison with Western European countries.

There remains, however, the method adopted in the Middleton Report, which was not one of produce per acre but of the number of calories which the produce per acre happened to include. The calory, of course, is a hypothetical estimate from a ration composed of various products of the land which that ration happens to include and which would suffice, it is held, for the maintenance of a man. As I have already said, Denmark is always held up to us as an example, and the Commissioners report that it has been estimated that the number of persons fed per hundred acres of Danish farmed land in the period 1909 to 1913 was from 45 to 62, whereas during the same period the number in England was 49 to 50. There you have a comparison of two Free Trade countries, and you do not find any very great difference, and Denmark is only able to obtain that small difference between 52 and 50 if the concession is made to her of female and child labour. In Germany it is true that half as many more people were supported before the War than either in Denmark or Great Britain; but that was only done by employing twice as much, and much cheaper, labour on the land, with, of course, Protection as a help. The backbone of the agricultural system in Germany was the use of imported fertilisers. That system worked well for so long as Germany was at peace; but when the stress of war came in 1916 and it was no longer possible for her to import fertilisers, the system broke down and it became impossible to supply a full ration. On the other hand, this much decried country of ours, with its contemptible system of agriculture, had in reserve the unexhausted fertility of its grass lands, and a supply of female labour. The Tribunal, therefore, came to the conclusion that farming efficiency roust not be tested by production as expressed in calories. Subject to the differences in soil, climate, and fiscal policy, they consider it safer to test efficiency in farming by the methods to which I have already referred.

So much for the past. In regard to the future, at the beginning of his term of office Mr. Wood invited the three classes connected with agriculture to meet him and discuss how best the arable area could be extended by 1,000,000 acres. His object was to increase the arable area to that extent. At present our arable area is, or it was when this Report was written, about 45 per cent. of the area under cultivation, and the Tribunal was advised that under no possible circumstances was it likely, or at any rate probable, that the arable area would fall below 12,000,000 acres for Britain. That would be about 37½ per cent. as compared with 45½ per cent. of cultivated area, but it would mean a decline of 2,500,000 acres. There are two alternatives. On the one hand you get a responsible person, the Minister of Agriculture, holding out to the country the possibility (and inviting people to help him) of increasing the arable area by 1,000,000 acres; and, on the other hand, you have the Report of these gentlemen who, from a study of all the circumstances and conditions affecting agriculture, warn us that there may be a falling off of something like 2,500,000 acres, with, of course, a consequent decrease in employment on the land.

With those two figures before us, the latter of which is of course vitally important in these days of depressed employment, I submit that I am justified in now asking the Government what is their policy. The Tribunal find that the decline in the arable area has been persistent since 1871—that is, over Europe as well as England—so persistent that it is only in Germany, where they have Protection for every item of agricultural produce, that they have been able to maintain their arable area. If you take Belgium (only partially protected), you find that she has not been able to maintain her arable area any more than has England. As regards a tariff, successive Governments have warned the farmer that it is a delusion if he thinks he is ever likely to get a tariff. I noticed a few clays ago the Prime Minister repeated that warning the Tribunal makes this observation: Under a Free Trade system Great Britain can only maintain its tilled areas by going over to arable stock farming. This, under English conditions, British farmers have no inducement to do. The Tribunal has no doubt that the British farmer can, as a general rule, make his business pay, but not with arable cultivation. By degrees more and more land will have to go down to grass, with a consequent falling off in the employment of labour. In the interests of a Free Trade policy they suggest that it should be the policy of the Government to prove that arable stock-farming can pay, and to do, so it will be necessary for the Government to carry out experiments on a large scale, because there is no inducement to the professional farmer to do it. I venture to claim that have proved my case to this extent, that the Report of this Tribunal holds the field, and that it is up to those who are contemptuously describing the British farmer as a fool, and British agriculture as decadent, to produce facts to controvert the findings of this Tribunal whose Reports are based upon facts.

In those circumstances I submit that it is a legitimate question to put to the Government: What did they mean when they allowed the Minister of Agriculture to say that their policy was to increase the acreage of arable land by 1,000,000 acres? The Minister must have consulted the Cabinet before he committed himself to an invitation of that kind. What had he in his mind when he made this statement with the Report before him which warned him that the British farmer was not likely to go in for arable stock-farming, and with the warning that in no Western country with anything like our fiscal system had they been able to keep up their arable labour? What had be in his mind when he invited the country to think it was possible to increase our arable area by 1,000,000 acres? Had the Government in their mind an intention to help farmers by a direct subsidy? I wonder. The Prime Minister has been talking a good deal, rather vaguely I think, about subsidies, and yesterday he told us that a Committee was going to be appointed to inquire very closely into what subsidies might mean. I wonder whether he is going to ask that Committee to consider whether they would recommend a subsidy for agriculture, or whether the Government have an intention by means of experiments to prove to the British farmer that arable stock-farming can be made to pay. That is the challenge which is thrown oat by the Farmers' Union in their most recent communication to my noble friend (Lord Bledisloe) and his chief. Are they going in for some experimental farming to show the British farmer that arable stock-farming can pay? I hope they are.

But I submit, whatever their policy he, they ought to tell us what it is as soon as they can. We are within a month of the rising of Parliament, and before Parliament reassembles the lay-out of farms will have been decided on. From my information, of course only local, I am very much afraid that a great deal more land is going down to grass, and, consequently, there will be less employment for agricultural labourers. That is the danger. It is not disputed that the natural tendency of our system of agriculture, as labour gets more expensive, is to dispense with it. And it is getting more expensive on the poor lands and the medium lands. The rich lands can always look after themselves. On the poor lands and medium lands the farmers in many cases are quite unable to pay the rates which they have at present to pay. This must come to an end. These farmers must, therefore, put their land down to grass, and employ less labour. That is not disputed. I submit that I have been justified in calling attention to this Report which, I think, is a most valuable one, and has received far less attention than it ought to have done. It deals fully with all the conditions affecting British agriculture as compared with agriculture in Western Europe, which is always being held up to us as far more intelligent and far more capable than is our own. I therefore ask the Government by what process they hope to achieve an increase in the acreage under wheat, and what view they take of the conclusion as expressed in my Question on the Paper.

LORD CLINTON

My Lords, I am sure my noble friend need make no excuse for bringing the question of the position of agriculture before your Lordships. He has given us an admirable survey of the Report of the Agricultural Tribunal, a Report which in itself is the most valuable statement of agricultural policy since the time of the Selborne Report. The evidence which is put before the nation in this Report confirms completely the very strong conclusion at which the Tribunal have arrived that the loss of tillage in this country is disastrous for the nation. That loss has been going on for some fifty years, and there is no doubt that under present conditions it must continue. In the earlier part of that period the change from tillage to grass was due to low prices; in the latter period, that is, during recent years, it was clue largely to increased costs. There were reasons which brought about this state of things—reasons larger than either of those to which the noble Lord has referred.

First of all, there have been the great changes in monetary values, which always affect agriculture in the highest degree. The beginning of this 50-year period was the time when the agricultural produce of the old world found itself faced with the produce of the new world, and it was seen that our older methods of cultivation and management could not face the cheap grain which we received from the long-stored-up fertility of that virgin land. Every nation took some steps to meet that situation save Great. Britain. Many of them reverted to Protection and whether in spite of, or in consequence of, that policy the result in those countries has been the maintenance of tillage and the attachment of the local rural population to the soil. But that was not by any means the only thing that foreign Governments did. If your Lordships will study the agricultural history of many European nations from that time onwards, you will find that as a result of the efforts to meet a desperate situation they consolidated very largely their small holding policy, which has attached the peasants to the soil and, as a natural and necessary complement, has created a system of co-operation and agricultural credits.

Up to that time Great Britain had been a pioneer in most agricultural matters, and particularly in education. From that moment foreign countries, so far as agricultural education is concerned, bean to advance in front of us. In their elementary schools they endeavoured, and have succeeded, in bringing into the teaching of the children of the tenderest years some agricultural atmosphere, some bias in favour of agriculture; and in all their rural schools they have been very careful in selecting as their teachers men who are country-bred, who know something of agriculture, and who are competent to teach it. We have teachers in this country who are very highly educated, hut too many of them are town bred, and when they have to do any teaching in any nature study they are barely a page or two in the text books ahead of their class.

While that education has been more competently carried out in other countries than here, we also find that in higher education and scientific research the same thing is taking place. In this country great institutions like that at Rothamsted and others have been pre-eminent in research all over the world, and still continue so, but other countries have done their best to copy them and their methods, and in one direction they have succeeded to a higher degree than we have, because they have been able to do what we have failed to do, and that is to bridge the great gulf which exists between educational research in these higher institutions and the ordinary practical farm on the land. In the case of Germany I know that almost the whole success of its new agricultural methods is attributed to the fact that they have direct communication between this higher education and the practical working farmer. There is no reason why we should fail to imitate things which are done better abroad than at home, but at the same time I deprecate, as the noble Lord does, this rather prevalent fashion of holding up for public admiration methods abroad at the expense of our methods at home. I agree that you will find in this country, among our best and most highly skilled farmers, the best agriculturists in the whole world. There are failures no doubt in many cases, both here and abroad, but on the general level think Great Britain still holds it own.

The difficulty of bridging the gulf between higher scientific research and the working man could, I think, be overcome if all counties in this country would follow the example of the more advanced counties and have one or more agricultural organisers—there are several counties without one—and see that they are kept in touch with the centres of research on the one hand, and, by lectures, meetings and demonstrations, with the men who are working on the land on the other. These are among the more permanent methods of improving agriculture which are dealt with in the Report. There are many others in addition. There is one point, however, in the Report to which the noble Lord has scarcely alluded, and that is the remark they make that there ale two main methods of keeping land under tillage in this country. One is Protection, and the other is subsidies; but in view of the difference of opinion in the country upon them they do not think it worth while to go into any detail.

The second part of the Report, however, makes it perfectly clear—it is argued at considerable length—that a subsidy to agriculture is the best method of keeping the land under cultivation. To most minds subsidies are objectionable, but probably for agricultural purposes some justification may be found for them. It is objectionable to advance public money to men who are carrying on individual businesses for a profit for themselves, but there is something different in the occupation of agricultural land, because the industry of agriculture is responsible to the whole nation for the safety of the nation in the matter of food in time of oar, and also it is directly and indirectly responsible for practically the whole of the employment in agricultural districts. That, I think, would seem to justify the possibility of the Government giving a subsidy, but I think we may make it quite clear that the farmer himself does not want a subsidy. He does not want a subsidy which will make him adopt a method of farming which he knows will be an unprofitable one for him. He wants to make his living, like any other business man, in his own way. But if the Government decide that a subsidy is uneconomic, that it is difficult to give it to one industry and refuse it to another, and that in the present state of the national finances it is impossible, then no one ought to blame the ordinary farmer because he carries on his business in his own way, which may not be the way that the nation desires. You cannot ask a farmer, out to make his living, to carry on his business in a way that does not suit him.

The alternatives should be quite clearly put before the Government. By a subsidy they might possibly get the land under arable cultivation; without it, it is almost certain that the gradual change from tillage to grass will continue even more rapidly than in the past, and that must take away a great deal of the possibility of keeping on the land the men, horses, implements and machinery which are necessary for cultivation, and which are absolutely necessary to enable the country to switch over to wheat cultivation, which is so important in time of war. In addition to that, with a falling arable cultivation the men must leave the country and add to the congestion in the towns, thus vastly complicating the problems of housing and of unemployment. I am not for one moment asking the Government to grant a subsidy, but I do say that before refusing to adopt that method they must see definitely the alternatives before them.

All the other methods—some of which I have suggested—are methods which in time will undoubtedly improve agriculture, and will, I hope, make arable cultivation more widespread, but they are necessarily slow, and it is to tide over tile present position that we put forward these suggestions. In addition to these long-term methods, surely something might be done by relieving the land of unnecessary burdens. Burdens on land, on whomsoever they are levied, must affect the general productive position of the industry. It is two years since a Committee representative of the landowners' organisations, the farmers' organisations and the labourers' organisations met round a table and eventually issued a unanimous Report on the subject of rating. The Government of 1923 took up that Report, adopted methods to some extent, and gave agriculture the greatest boon that any Government has given it in recent years by decreasing the assessment for agricultural purposes down to one-fourth. It is necessary that a man occupying agricultural land, by the very nature of his business, should occupy a much larger amount of rateable property in proportion to his income than any other ratepayer, and consequently it is essential that his rates should be brought down to a reasonable figure. At the time I was satisfied that one-fourth was a fair figure to take, but it still leaves the agricultural ratepayer in a worse position than other men of like income.

Another question is that of Death Duties on land. We have for years made attempts with all Chancellors of the Exchequer to get them to realise the essential difference in the incidence of these duties on land and on other property. We received great sympathy, but we got very little results, until the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, more far-seeing than his predecessors, exempted agricultural land from the last turn of the screw of the Death Duties. While we are exceedingly grateful for that concession and while I hope that the Government realise the difference between landed estate and other forms of property, yet it does not touch the point which we are making, and are always bound to make, that the hardship of these duties on agricultural land is not due to the rates, which is a hardship which we bear in common with everyone else, but to the method of valuation, which makes the charge on agricultural land equivalent to about thirty or forty times its net income value. The ordinary charge on personal estates, such as estates in the Funds, is not more than twenty or twenty-two times. That is the real figure. I would ask the Government to consider the points put before them in this debate. I regret that they have failed in getting the conference together to assist them in their ideas, although I have no doubt that my noble friend has had excellent advice from all parties on the matter. I trust that among all his counsellors he will have found some wisdom.

THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY

My Lords, two points have been raised during the remarks that have been made by the noble Lord who initiated the debate and the noble Lord who followed him, on which I would like to say a few words, because I may be able to reassure both the noble Lords on those points. Lord Harris referred to the importance of research work being done on arable and stock fanning. It may reassure him that as a member of the Development Commission, an advisory body of the Treasury, I have lately visited the Harper-Adams College, where a very important experiment has been going on for some years in arable stock farming. They have acquired 400 acres, partly arable, and partly grass, and the valuable information which they have obtained will, I hope, shortly be given to the public.

An important point has also been raised which, curiously enough, was under the consideration of the Development Commission this morning, namely, the channel by which information acquired through research may be brought to the farmer, for whom, after all, the information is intended. It was agreed that, first of all, you must have the information in a printed form. Then it is important that the local authority should have agricultural organisers who are well informed upon all these points that have been printed. There are also advisory officers who are set apart by the Ministry for the purpose of advising and assisting the agricultural organiser. Then, finally, there is the farmer himself.

There are difficulties, I admit, in passing that information on, and my own view is that when all that is done, it will finally be necessary to organise bodies of farmers who will be taken to the centre of research and Who will have an opportunity of being eye-witnesses of what is being done, and will thus be given an opportunity of listening to lectures on the methods employed and the results obtained. I rose only to say that those two points are under very careful consideration, and I am sure that the noble Lord who will speak for the Ministry will be able to confirm me.

THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (LORD BLEDISLOE)

My Lords, I understand that there is a desire on the part of several of your Lordships that this debate should be adjourned. If a suitable time could be found for resuming the debate later, I for my part am, of course, quite agreeable, but whether your Lordships would desire that I should reply to the specific Question which my noble friend Lord Harris has put down upon the Paper I cannot say. I would suggest that it might fie more convenient if I were to do so, and then the general question of agricultural policy could be deferred for consideration upon some other day. But, of course, I am in the hands of the House in this matter.

LORD ERNLE

I think, if I may say so, that it will be more convenient to adjourn the debate before the noble Lord makes his reply.

EARL BEAUCHAMP

My Lords, I also, if I may say so, feel that this course would be more convenient, because, if the noble Lord, Lord Bledisloe, were simply to answer the Question, he would preclude himself from speaking again and making a full statement on a subsequent occasion. That, I am sure, would be a pity, for we should like to hear the noble Lord say everything that is in his mind on the subject. I think it would be better if the noble Lord were to move the adjournment now, and he would then he able to take first place, I think, on Monday, July 27, if the debate was adjourned until that date. There will then, I believe, be nothing in front of him.

LORD EMMOTT

If the Government desires some other member of your Lordships' House to move the adjournment, I will do so; not because I intend to speak, but as a matter of convenient.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER (VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD)

My Lords, I do not think that makes any difference, but I think it would probably be convenient to move the adjournment to a particular day. It is suggested to me that Monday, July 27, would be the best date. Until then the Order Paper is rather crowded, but on that day the debate would, I believe, come on first. If that suggestion meets the convenience of noble Lords, I or my noble friend will move the adjournment of the debate until Monday, July 27. I beg to move that the debate be now adjourned until that date.

Moved, That the debate be now adjourned until Monday, July 27.— (Viscount Cecil of Chelwood.)

On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

[From Minutes of July 8.]