AGRICULTURAL RETURNS BILL. (Hansard, 19 May 1925)

§ LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM

My Lords, on the Committee Stage of this Bill I moved an Amendment to delete the words which provide that a farmer was obliged to return the number of men he employs, and my chief reason for doing that was that I was afraid that the Return would be taken advantage of in order to do what, in my opinion, would be a harmful thing, not only to landowners, but to agriculture generally. I am confirmed in my opinion by seeing in last week's Farmer and Stockdealer the report of a speech made by Mrs. Francis Acland at Gloucester, at a meeting of the Women's Liberal Association, in which she said that the land programme of the Liberal Party was to give security of tenure to the farmer. She gave an illustration where a farmer was paying a present rate of £1,500 a year, and she said that under the Liberal programme he would pay £500 a year to the landlord and the remaining £1,000 he would keep in order to provide for the expense of repairs. He was also to have fixity of tenure, subject to one consideration, that he employed per acre as many men as the land would support. I believe, and I always have believed, that the real reason why these words were inserted in this Bill was to enable people who were land nationalises, and were against the agricultural interest generally, to say, "You have got to employ so many men on the, land, or we shall take your land from you, and work it by the State." I thought before we passed the Third Heading of this Bill that I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to that speech, which confirms the fears which I have always entertained in regard to this special provision.