HL Deb 08 December 1926 vol 65 cc1289-315

LORD STRACHIE had given Notice to move, That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty praying that the Milk and Dairies Order, 1926, dated 6th July, 1926, be annulled. The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Act of 1915 which I had the honour of piloting through this House on behalf of the Liberal Government contemplated that the Regulations made under this Act might be very stringent and that it might be necessary for both Houses of Parliament to have considerable time in which to consider whether they desired them to have the force of law or not. I say that because, unlike many other Orders which have to lie on the table of both Houses, this Order has to lie on the table for forty days, instead of the usual twenty or twenty-one. I remember very well that this period of forty days was forced on the then Government by the Conservative Opposition in the House of Commons who thought it desirable that very considerable time should be given for full consideration by the country and by agriculturists.

As regards my Notice on the Paper I should like to say at once that I am not objecting to this Order en bloc, quite the contrary. I think many of the thirty-three articles are most excellent, necessary and desirable. I am taking serious objection only to three. Why do I say this? Your Lordships will agree that it is absolutely necessary that we should do everything in our power to see that clean milk is provided for the consumption of our people and that there should be the utmost cleanliness, as the Order provides, observed by the milkers, that the cows should be kept clean and their udders free from dirt before they are milked, and also that the milk churns should be thoroughly and properly cleansed before use after being sent back from the districts. It is interesting to note that in the Royal Society's research report the other day there was a statement as regards this question of cleanliness of milk churns and utensils—namely, that the American view is that 80 per cent of the impurities in milk can be attributed to the handling of the milk, that is to say, handling in the milking of the cows and also the putting of it into utensils.

I am confirmed in that by a statement made by my noble friend the Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, for, writing in The Times on November 26, Lord Bledisloe stated: What I especially stressed at yesterday's gathering at the Middlesex Guildhall was that clean milk is to the extent of 80 per cent a human problem (depending upon the actual milking of the cows and subsequent handling of the milk) and to a relatively small extent one of buildings and equipment. I entirely agree with my noble friend in that and what I am objecting to is the enormous expense which is put on owners, large and small, by certain provisions of the Order. I see that my noble friend says that very little impurity is attributable to the buildings. I hope that I shall be able to convince the House that as regards the three articles I refer to they have very little bearing on the question of impurity.

My noble friend will be rather surprised when I say that there are two Articles, Numbers 27 and 29, about which it is very doubtful what reason there can be for putting off their coming into force for one year and nine months. I would urge if this Order is modified or withdrawn that that period of delay should be less. Article 27 is as follows: A person shall not use, or cause to be used, for the reception, measurement, storage or delivery of milk any churn, vessel or other receptacle, the interior surface of which is incapable of being readily cleansed. If we are to have pure milk surely that article should be put into force after a shorter period of delay than one year and nine months. The expense would be very little indeed of seeing that these churns are put into proper condition. I cannot help thinking that in this case and in the case of Article 29 the manufacturers have had a great deal more influence with the Ministry of Health than the agriculturists have.

As regards Article 29, that is much on the same lines: Every person shall cause every churn, vessel or other receptacle, other than bottles, in which he despatches milk by rail or road to comply with the following requirements, viz.:—

  1. "(1) The name and address of the owner shall be permanently marked on the churn, vessel or other receptacle, or on a plate or plates of metal properly soldered or otherwise securely affixed thereto
  2. "(2) The churn, vessel or other receptacle shall be provided with a lid without openings, which shall be so constructed and fitted as effectively to prevent the access to the milk of dirt, dust, or rain water, or the return to the interior of the receptacle of any milk which may have been splashed above the lid."
I cannot see why that particular article, which would not present serious difficulties, should be put off for a year and nine months, as the Order proposes. Surely it is most important that these churns and other receptacles should have a proper lid, and it should be quite clear that nothing of a contaminating nature should enter those churns during transport.

I will now deal with Article 8, which runs as follows:— Every county council and county borough shall cause to be made such inspections of cattle as may be necessary and proper for the purposes of this Act and of this Order. Why should it be necessary for every county council and county borough to make an inspection of the whole of the cattle in their area? I understand that my noble friend Lord Bledisloe is going to reply on behalf of the Ministry of Health, but he can only speak as their mouthpiece. He is not speaking for the Ministry of Agriculture on this occasion, because this Order comes from the Ministry of Health, and it only has the concurrence of the Ministry of Agriculture. It will be entirely enforced by the Ministry of Health, and that Ministry may say in the future that it desires the cattle in the country to be inspected monthly, quarterly, half-yearly or yearly, and that might be enforced upon any county council. I venture to think there are some Ministers, if not now certainly in the future, who are very anxious to have an army of officials, and there will have to be an army of officials in every county to go about inspecting cattle to see whether they are diseased or not.

Let the onus remain as it is now upon the owners of the cattle of reporting to the county council or the local authority if and when they know that any of their cattle are diseased. We know there are cases in which such reports are necessary; for instance, in the case of tuberculosis. But why is it necessary to have these general inspections and to throw the whole of the onus upon the officials of the county council? As I say, why should not the onus be upon the owners of the cattle? And if they do not report, by all means let them be prosecuted. That seems to me to be much the more reasonable procedure and the more reasonable way of dealing with the matter.

Then Article 12 provides that Every cowshed and every building used for keeping milk, other than a cold store, shall be provided with a sufficient number of windows or other openings suitably placed and communicating with the external air. The windows or permanent openings shall be such as to secure that the building is sufficiently lighted during the hours of daylight and the openings provided for ventilation shall be kept in proper order and so used as to secure that the air in the building is kept in a fresh and wholesome condition. I do not for one moment object to buildings being properly lighted and they ought certainly to be properly ventilated. But here is an Order which may be used very unfairly and drastically in the part of the county from which I come, where, for all practical purposes, cowsheds are used very little indeed unless it is for milking night and morning. In some parts of my own county the cattle, for all practical purposes, are never tied up or housed at all during the winter except in very severe weather. There may be, and no doubt is, a difference in some parts of the country, where cows are kept the whole year round in cowsheds. But here is an Order which on the face of it looks as though, in the hands of officials who wish to magnify their office, it might put landowners to trouble. Such an official will say: "Here is an Order of the Ministry of Health and you must carry it out. It is necessary for you to have windows with shutters to them in every cowshed you have."

Then you may say that Article 13 will lead to exactly the same thing. It says:— All registered premises shall be provided with a supply of water suitable and sufficient for the requirements of this Order. That sounds very nice, but it may be a very difficult thing indeed to supply water suitable and sufficient for the requirements of the Order. Who is going to be the judge of what is suitable and sufficient to the conditions under which the cows are kept? It is very different if the cows are kept entirely out of doors or not altogether in the cowshed. It all depends on the circumstances of the particular district. But there are people who are fanatics in this matter and who say that you must have water laid on in every cowshed. Officials of that sort will cause great difficulty.

Now I come to what to my mind is the most serious part of the Order, and I think the noble Lord will be of that opinion also. I refer to Article 25. It is rather long, but I am afraid I must read it to your Lordships because it is so very important. It says:— Every cowkeeper shall cause the floor of every cowshed in his occupation to be constructed of such material and in such manner as to render it practicable to remove all liquid matter which may fall thereon, and he shall cause such cowshed to be provided with channels of rendered concrete or other durable and impervious material so constructed as to prevent as far as reasonably practicable the soiling of the cows and so as to receive all such liquid matter and to convey it to a suitable drain or other place of disposal outside such cowshed. The question naturally arises: What is this going to cost? There are various estimates as to what the cost of it will be. I am now dealing merely with the question of floors, and what I am saying has nothing to do with windows or the water supply. I notice it is suggested in the Journal of the Ministry of Agriculture that the average expenditure will be about £2 per cow in order to comply with Article 25. On the other hand, I have received information from my own County of Somerset that the County Council consider that the cost to the County Council on their small holdings will be £5 per cow in order to comply with Article 25. The County Council of Somerset are the largest land owners in the County, owning as they do over 20,000 acres. As there is an enormous number of cows on the small holdings there it will be seen how very serious a matter it is and how much it will hamper the efforts of the County Council in extending small holdings and providing them in the future if compliance with this Article is to cost£5 per cow.

I cannot see why there should be this great necessity for having concrete floors in all cases. In the ordinary conditions now there are bricks or cobble-stones, and it is very easy indeed with a supply of water to keep brick or cobble-stone floors perfectly clean and sweet. And certainly that is all that is necessary where cows spend only a short time in the cow sheds. I doubt whether concrete floors are altogether desirable. I may say that I have had to replace the concrete floors in some of the cowsheds on my property where they have been laid down and have put in cobble-stones, the reason being that if a cow is going to calve she is very liable to slip on the concrete, and if she goes down it injures her. Unless enormous expense is incurred in laying down these concrete floors they are very likely to crack, and in my experience and in the experience, no doubt, of some of your Lordships, if these floors crack a very serious state of things ensues, because if there are cracks which you cannot wash out the droppings and the water get into them. I would like now to draw your Lordships' attention to what has been said on this subject by the Central Chamber of Agriculture, who protested against the cost, as I am doing to-day, and also asked for a right of appeal to the Minister of Agriculture.

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

May I ask the noble Lord how long ago that was?

LORD STRACHIE

I think it was in the annual report that it was referred to. I have it and the noble Lord, who was present at the meeting yesterday, no doubt has it, and when he gets home and reads the report he will see it there.

LORD BLEDISLOE

I asked the noble Lord because the original draft has been considerably revised.

LORD STRACHIE

If the noble Lord says that the Central Chamber of Agriculture has repudiated that I will not pursue it, but I understood that was the view of the Chamber.

LORD BLEDISLOE

I was only at the meeting yesterday for five minutes and I do not know what took place there.

LORD STRACHIE

Then I venture to think that it is rather out of place for the noble Lord to contradict me on a matter about which he knows nothing.

LORD BLEDISLOE

I hope that the very last thing I should do is to be discourteous to the noble Lord or to any member of your Lordships' House. I only asked the date when this protest was made, because protests came from several organisations and as the draft Order has been considerably modified since as the result of their representations, I naturally wanted to know whether this was the original protest or another.

LORD STRACHIE

All the information is in the report I mentioned, which, so far as I know, was adopted without alteration. The noble Lord will forgive me for adding that as he was at the meeting for five minutes only I do not think he is able to give any better opinion than I am. The report was passed by the Business Committee and was accepted. Still, it is a small matter and I will put it entirely aside for the moment. Now I should like to refer to the question of the appeal. I understand there is no real appeal in the ordinary sense of the word. The only kind of appeal would be this. If the landowner was prosecuted for not carrying out any of these articles, he would be called before a court of summary jurisdiction and the probability is that under the Order he would be convicted. All he could then do would be to appeal on points of law to Quarter Sessions. That seems a cumbersome and expensive way of dealing with the matter. It would have been very much better if there had been some appeal to the Ministry of Agriculture in cases where the local authorities were exceeding what is really their proper duty, although not exceeding the strict letter of this particular Order.

I have referred to the heavy expenditure which will be incurred by county councils in this matter. In my County of Somerset the cost is estimated at £5 per cow. It is interesting to note that when the arrangement was made, as your Lordships know, the full cost and liability was referred from the Government to the county councils and certain sums have been paid to each county in order to compensate them for the losses that used to be paid for by the Ministry of Agriculture. Under that arrangement the Ministry of Agriculture are willing to allow to the Somerset County Council—and I suppose to other county councils in the same proportion—an amount of £100 a year for making the necessary changes on small holdings under Article 25 and the other articles of which I have complained. That £100 has been capitalised at a sum of £2,000. The information that I already have shows that instead of spending £100 a year it will be much more like thousands of pounds a year. I have a statement referring to what has already been done on some of the small holdings in my County. On one, which is only three acres in extent, we have to make an expenditure of £23 10s. for the purpose of breaking up a stone floor and laying it with concrete. In another case, that of a small holding of 17 acres, we have to spend £32 in order to carry out concreting. Your Lordships will, therefore, see that a large amount has already to be spent and that the £100 will go no way towards compensating us in the future.

The expenditure, as I have already stated, will be very serious indeed and owner-occupiers generally in the country believe that they are going to be very hardly hit. I was speaking the other day to the chairman of the Somerset branch of the National Farmers' Union of which I am a member and he told me that, as an owner-occupier, it would be a very serious thing indeed for him to have to carry out all these Regulations. The feeling among members of the National Farmers' Union in regard to this is that it is a very serious thing indeed for them. I have had a resolution sent to me on the subject from the Milk Committee of the Somerset branch of the National Farmers' Union and I would like to read it to your Lordships to show how members of that Union view this matter. They have passed the following resolution:— That in cases where a landlord refuses to carry out any constructional alterations to premises which may be ordered under the Milk and Dairies Order and the tenant, in order to carry on his business, has undertaken the alteration, then he shall on quitting the holding be able to recover such expenditure from his landlord. This shows that it is going to mean a heavy expenditure indeed for them.

It has been said, and may be said here to-day, that as regards Article 25 the precaution has been taken that no landlord or owner-occupier or farmer will have to pay anything in respect of his cowsheds for three years. That may be all very well. The noble Lord will at once say: "I shall be in office, and the present Minister of Health will be in office, and everything will be quite all right and you will not be prejudiced." But we know that Governments come and go, and there may be in power some Minister of Health who would make this Order, and in three years would say: "We are going to enforce it very strictly indeed." Therefore to put it off for three years is really no advantage at all. It is very strong and very drastic, and it is certainly something that the Government do not at all care to put into force. One ought also to remember this. The dairy farmers of this country have to encounter competition from the farmers of other countries who will send their dairy produce here to compete with us, and will not have try meet any of the heavy expenditure that our farmers have to meet in respect of this Order.

One other very interesting matter arises. As I have already said, I am not complaining of the Order except as regards the expenditure it will entail. I think that in many cases an unreasonable expenditure will be called for, not perhaps by the Minister of Agriculture and not perhaps by the Minister of Health, because he will only issue the Orders and will not be the authority to carry them out. But we shall be at the mercy of every urban and rural district council and every municipality. One can already foresee fanatics getting up in those councils and making all sorts of allegations about the sources of the milk supply and insisting upon all kinds of unreasonable things being done. As a result of such agitation, the inspector when he comes down will say: "This must be carried out; expense must not stand in the way." The councils on their part will say: "We have the Order of the Ministry of Health and we must see that that Order is carried out."

Members in another place did not seem to have awakened to this because they did not take the trouble to question the Milk and Dairies Order. But they have now awakened to the very serious results which may flow from it. No doubt very great complaints have come from the farmers in the various constituencies to members of the other House. I know that they have come from my own County. The feeling was so strong in the House of Commons that the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Health had to meet the Agricultural Committee of the House of Commons the other day. I am going to read from a report of what took place headed: "Milk and Dairies Order: Position of the Small Producer":— The uneasiness and irritation in the agricultural districts caused by the Milk and Dairies Order found expression last night at a largely attended meeting at the House of Commons of the Unionist Parliamentary Agricultural Committee, presided over by Sir George Courthope, M.P. Mr. Neville Chamberlain (Minister of Health) and Mr. Walter Guinness (Minister of Agriculture) were present. What did Mr. Guinness say? Addressing the members after a good deal of discussion and criticism of the Order, the report states that He announced that local sanitary officials throughout the country were to be given the opportunity of a course of instruction by agricultural centres with a view to making them acquainted with the desirability of mitigating the necessary instructions on the farming community. Mr. Chamberlain goes even further, The report from which I have already quoted stated: Mr. Neville Chamberlain stated that he would issue a circular to local authorities emphasising the need of the reasonable administration of the Order, having regard to the difficulties attaching to milk production. Stress was laid on the importance of cleanliness in cowkeeping methods rather than the need for large expenditure on structural alterations. Does it not seem rather strange to your Lordships, when the Minister of Health has made an Order and the Minister of Agriculture has concurred in it, that when it comes to the light of day and it is discussed by those interested in it the Minister should find it necessary to assure the House of Commons that his Order is so drastic and so unreasonable that he is going to send a circular to rural district councils and urban district councils telling them he hopes they will administer it reasonably? Would it not be common sense to withdraw an Order which the Minister himself admits is unreasonable, which he finds it necessary to explain and about which he says that it is not to be put in force in its entirety? Does not that seem to be the most businesslike way in which to deal with the matter?

Certainly it would be appreciated by those interested if the Minister would say that he did not consider the document infallible and that it was right to withdraw the Order in order to modify the objectionable part of it, and if he would say that he will reconsider it, instead of issuing this circular telling district councils that they ought to work it reasonably because the Order itself is not reasonable. It stands to common sense that that would be the much better way of dealing with the matter. Although the circular is issued any district council could say: "We don't care for Minister's circulars" and put it aside. We know that sometimes circulars are thrown into the wastepaper basket. I yield to no one in my desire that the country should have the purest milk, produced under the best sanitary conditions, and out of the thirty-three articles there are only three to which I object. There is one Article, No. 25, which throws this enormous expenditure upon the industry at a time which all agricultural landlords will agree is difficult and likely to become more difficult. This is not a time when they can afford this very heavy expenditure. All I ask is that this circular should be withdrawn and that the articles in respect of which they are going to issue this circular should be dropped. I beg to move.

Moved, That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty praying that the Milk and Dairies Order, 1926, dated 6th July, 1926, be annulled.—(Lord Strachie.)

LORD CLINTON

My Lords, like my noble friend who has just spoken I am not in any sense antagonistic to the general tenor of these Regulations which have been issued. They are generally much less severe and much less drastic than many by-laws that have been enforced in the past and I am grateful to see that they have omitted some recent very absurd orders, such as laying down the actual number of cubic feet required for each cow, regardless of the circumstances in which the cow is housed. But at the same time these Regulations have caused an enormous amount of resentment in country districts. The resentment, so far as I know, is not found among the large dairy farmers. The large dairy farmer rightly recognises, I think, that under the conditions under which he supplies milk, where a long period elapses from the time the milk leaves the farm until it reaches the consumer and where there is every opportunity for the rapid spread of these baccilli which are the cause of most of the dangers of milk, he must carry on his trade under conditions which have been found to be essential for the purity of the milk.

But the large dairy farmer is not found in all parts of the country. We know quite well that in many of the agricultural districts the real dairy farmer scarcely exists, and where he does exist his milk goes, not to his neighbours or to those living in the district, but to the larger towns. The people living in the district are dependent for their supply of milk, not upon the dairy farmer, but upon those others who carry on a quite different agricultural business, who have cows to supply milk mainly for their own consumption and who sell daily a certain amount of surplus milk to their neighbours. In the aggregate that is a very large supply in agricultural districts, but from each individual farm it is very small, and it will be impossible to expect either the owner or the occupier of that class of farm to spend that very considerable amount of money which my noble friend has suggested in order that there may be continued the supply of perhaps a few pints of milk a day from each of those places. I am confident that if the Orders are applied to that class of farmer there will be a very serious shortage of milk in many agricultural parts of the Kingdom.

Perhaps I am not expressing the opinion of experts, but I do think the purity of the milk supplied is not the only thing which should be considered. The actual supply itself is really of equal importance. Disaster will occur if milk cannot be produced for the use of people in country districts. Arrangements for the purity of the milk on these farms are not nearly so important as upon the larger dairy farms because the milk is consumed almost at the moment of production. Frequently people are actually waiting with their jugs at the doors of the farm for the milking to be over. There is not, therefore, the same danger of the spread of poisonous bacilli in that very short period between production and consumption. We know—I think it has been stated—that in the opinion of the Ministry the Regulations ought not to be applied to these smaller farms. The Regulations are meant for the men who are really carrying on the trade of dairy farmers. Those words appear in the Regulations, and these men to whom I refer, who are really concerned in quite a different trade, ought not to come in that category.

Lord Strachie has suggested that the Minister has already expressed the hope that these Regulations will be carried out with some discretion. What I should like my noble friend, the Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, to do—I know it is not in his Department—is to suggest to the Minister of Health that in the circular which he is going to address to district councils he should definitely state his view as to the position of these small farms which sell their surplus milk. There is a very great need for enjoining discretion upon the district councils at the present moment. My noble friend suggested that at some future date some Minister of Health might do away with the postponement part of Article 25 and might instruct the immediate application of this reconstruction of premises. But you need not wait for a new Minister of Health. The thing is going on now. Last Monday morning I went into my office and found, I think, seventeen orders for the alteration of pebble floors into concrete floors to be carried out forthwith under the most severe pains and penalties. Of course these orders went into the natural receptable for that class of communication, because, although it may be that this is justified—I do not know if it is—yet it is totally illegal to issue these instructions. The restriction on premises is clearly put off for eighteen months under these Regulations, and it cannot be enforced without a further eighteen months' notice. I hope that my noble friend will inform the Minister of Health that these instructions are being issued, not only to me but to many others, and are causing a resentment against the whole of the Orders of the Ministry which is most unfortunate.

LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM

My Lords, I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will bear in mind the case of my noble friend Lord Clinton, who has already had seventeen orders served on him. The Regulations read out by the noble Lord, Lord Strachie, are very drastic. They will be administered by various officials in different parts of the country. These officials will not have to spend a shilling of their own money in carrying out these restrictions and, human nature being what it is, it is absolutely certain that a great number of them will be in favour of the utmost straining of the Regulations and will require you to spend a very considerable sum of money to create conditions which may be ideal but which it is quite impossible to fulfil at the present time and which are also, I believe, in many cases quite unnecessary.

I think my noble friend the Parliamentary Secretary will agree with me that at the present moment agriculture is in a very serious position. Sheep are down to pre-War prices, cattle are very nearly at pre-War prices, and, though there has been a considerable amount of straw in wheat and oats, they are threshing out extremely badly. Accordingly conditions on an ordinary farm are practically as bad as they were before the War. But wages have doubled. How on earth can a man produce an article and get a profit out of it when the cost of producing it is double what it was before the War, when there was hardly any profit to be made? There is one bright spot in agriculture at the present moment. I believe that the milk industry is holding its own—I do not think it is doing more than that—and, this being the case, the Government, who were returned to assist agriculture, come down and impose upon the only part of agriculture that is doing well restrictions which, if carried out to the letter, will undoubtedly throw a large number or milk farmers out of business.

I do not for a moment venture to contradict that which my noble friend Lord Clinton said about the large dairy farmer. No doubt he has very many model buildings which will not need much money expended upon them, but to my own knowledge, extending perhaps over not more than two counties, there are large numbers of farmers doing dairy business, farming from 250 to 300 acres, with buildings which were never designed for dairy farming but for ordinary agricultural farming. Those buildings have been more or less adapted to carry out dairy farming, but in no way do they approach the requirements read out by the noble Lord opposite. I do not wish to go into the whole of the Regulations, but I would ask my noble friend Lord Bledisloe one question. We are told that water is to be laid on continuously. There are very many places where it is extremely difficult to get water except out of a pond or by pumping. Does it mean that there is to be a cistern placed at a certain elevation and that the water is to be pumped up into that cistern every day in order that it may be continuously supplied to the cows? If that is to be done it will entail very considerable expense upon the landlord. And what about the tenant? How is he going to find either a man to pump at double pre-War wages or an engine to be run by somebody who understands engines?

These things are all very well if you are sitting in an office in Whitehall, and it is very nice to walk down into a beautiful cowshed with smooth floors which, as the noble Lord said, are also very slippery. I have made concrete myself with grooves about half an inch in depth, and the cows did not slip on that, but I do not know whether that would satisfy my noble friend below me. I suppose you could not sweep it quite as clean as if it were absolutely smooth, and you are left with the difficulty that you must have something that can be swilled down without any trouble. If you put grooves, it cannot be swilled, and the official will say: "I want a slippery concrete; they are not my cows and I do not care whether they fall down or not." I do earnestly hope that at the present moment, when everything is as bad as it can possibly be—trade, agriculture and all the rest—you will leave alone the only bright spot in agriculture. What is the use of putting it off for eighteen months? The bad things will have to be done then and money will have to be spent. For goodness sake leave it alone. A great statesman not many years ago said: "Why on earth cannot you leave it alone?" I ask the Government to remember that saying and to carry it out.

LORD OLIVIER

My Lords, this Order is, I think, probably a continuation of the venerable plan that was in the Ministry of Agriculture fourteen years ago when I joined it and which has now come to maturity. I should like to reinforce some of Lord Clinton's observations. In our small villages we have people with three or four acres supplying the village with milk and it is quite impossible for them to put their bartons into the condition which this Order would require. If it is to be done, His Majesty's Government will have to provide for the doing of it, just as they are going to provide, in the Bill that they have in hand, for improving rural cottages. If they like to do that, they can bring the milk supply of the country upon a proper basis. But that does not dispose of the necessity for these Orders. I am quite sure that rural district councils are not going to be too drastic in enforcing this Order, if I know them at all. But, apart from those large farmers referred to by Lord Clinton, who can and do put their dairies in proper order, there are a great many farmers supplying milk from thirty, forty and fifty acres and using bartons that are in a most disgraceful and dangerous state. Their milk goes up daily to London and we cannot tell what amount of infection and disease may be conveyed from those dairies. Those are the dairies to which the rural district council must pay attention, and it should have the power to do so.

As to the noble Lord's remarks concerning concrete, when I took over a small piece of land I had a tenant farmer and, having a certain amount of conscience and having come from the Board of Agriculture, I put my cowshed into excellent order, with slanting concrete, with windows and shutters and so on, and made a very nice light cow-house. Unfortunately my tenant, who milks about four or five cows, thought the concrete was cold and that the cows would slip on it, and he persistently keeps his cows in the old cowshed with a hard gravel floor and about ten inches of dung on top. The local authority have taken no action. When he kills pigs my tenant finds the new cowshed very useful because the concrete floor makes it a nice clean butcher's shop.

LORD HINDLIP

My Lords, I have very little to add to what has already been said by previous speakers, but I would ask my noble friend Lord Bledisloe to pay particular attention to what Lord Clinton said about small people in village areas. In my own part of the country, when one wants an additional gallon of milk one cannot get it at all. As regards the orders which have already been given out, I can confirm what previous speakers have said. I heard only the other day of an estate of something like 10,000 acres where orders had already been issued, and it had been estimated that the cost of carrying them out would amount to something like£28,000. I am also told that the land agent in charge of the property expressed the opinion that it would be quite unjustifiable, on his part, to sanction the expenditure of anything like that sum. There is one small matter—perhaps it is not so very small—with regard to Clause 25, where the buildings are not liable to be altered for three years. I am not at all sure if a man is milking in one of these buildings which have to be altered whether a registration licence would be issued to him until the buildings are altered. Perhaps my noble friend would tell us that.

As regards these concrete buildings and cowsheds, it is really very difficult to know where one stands. May I give your Lordships a small experience of my own? In 1915, at the commencement of the War, I renovated a fair-sized cowshed—concrete floors, Young's fittings, gas, and water in three or four places. I had nothing to do with the construction myself, or the plans. The whole thing was carried out by persons supposed to be experts in this line of business. The whole of the plans were passed, and had to be passed, by the Ministry of Agriculture's own inspector before the building was begun, and had to be passed again by the Ministry's own inspector when the buildings were finished, before the money could be obtained from the Land Improvement Company. I understand that during the last fortnight that building has been condemned. The local district council, when they heard of this—they all knew the building—were naturally rather alarmed themselves, because they thought that if a building approved by the Ministry of Agriculture during the last ten years was now condemned, there would not be very much chance for anybody else's buildings.

LORD BLEDISLOE

My Lords, I should imagine, after listening to this debate, that I had not a friend in the House, but for the fact that I am able to credit your Lordships with some sense of proportion, and I feel confident that, after a short explanation of the actual position and the intention of the Ministry of Health, your Lordships will agree with me, or most of you will agree with me, that the picture has been somewhat too glaringly painted. As regards this debate, I venture to say, with some little knowledge of the conditions prevailing in most other civilised countries, that such a, debate could not have taken place in a legislative chamber in any other civilised country of the world. For this reason, that in these matters most civilised countries are, unfortunately, very far ahead of us, because they have paid greater attention to the fact that the health of the community is undoubtedly affected injuriously by the consumption or ingestion of polluted milk and taken more drastic action in consequence.

I am not going to quote countries—because I should have to quote almost every country which was likely to carry any sort of conviction to your minds—as being far more drastic in these matters than we are as yet, but what I should like to call attention to is this, and whether the case is post hoc or propter hoc I leave your Lordships to decide, that the consumption per capita of milk in this country is disgracefully small—in fact smaller, so far as we know, per head of the population, than in any other highly civilised country in the world; and all the Health authorities, so far as I know, are prepared to admit that the health of the nation, and particularly of its children, is suffering in consequence of the inadequate consumption of milk. You may say that that does not affect the question under discussion, but I think it affects it very materially, because if there is an opinion abroad—and there has been an opinion abroad, and I go so far as to say that I think it has been exaggerated by the enthusiasts and extremists in this matter—that there is what is sometimes called "poison in the milk pail," it does act as a serious deterrent to the consumption of milk among the poorer population, who seek to find some alternative, when there is no alternative so far as the infantile population is concerned, to milk as a food.

Lord Banbury, I think, pointed out with considerable truth the difficulty of making a living out of any part of farming at the present time, except, I think he said, dairy farming. I am not sure that all farmers would agree to that qualification. We are told, however, on the best authority, that the reason why farmers have not been able to make a sufficiently good milk contract is that there is, in fact, a surplus of milk at the present time in this country; or, in other words, that there is insufficient demand on the part of the population generally for the available supply. Is it not fair to assume that to some extent this is due to the fact that the milk supply is not all that the most enlightened people would like to see it in this country. Medical officers of health in certain cities, to my knowledge, have given public advice against the consumption of liquid milk by infants in their administrative areas, and have gone so far as to advocate in preference the consumption of milk powder or dried milk coming from other countries. That is not good for the dairy farmer, or the dairying industry, and if we do make some reasonable concession to enlightened public opinion and medical demands, it is more than possible that the demand for milk will increase and the dairy farmer in consequence be more prosperous.

And I have an illustration which I hope your Lordships will bear in mind, the case of New Zealand. It was only a few years ago that the Government of New Zealand rendered themselves extremely unpopular with the farmers of that country by insisting upon far more drastic Regulations than had previously been in force in the production and handling of milk, nearly all of which comes in the form of various dairy products to this country. What has been the result? Within four years that Government became the most popular Government among the agricultural community that New Zealand has ever seen for the very good reason that the demand in this country for agricultural produce from New Zealand went up enormously as a result of the improved quality of New Zealand dairy products.

I am here to-day speaking, as I am asked to do, for the Ministry of Health as well as for the Ministry of Agriculture. This is an Order of the Ministry of Health, and I want to say quite frankly I am very glad to have the opportunity, although generally representing the Ministry of Agriculture in this House, to speak on this occasion on behalf of the Ministry of Health, because there has in the past been an idea, not wholly without foundation, that on this subject of Regulations relating to milk and cowsheds and the like there has not been complete unanimity between the two Departments. I quite frankly say that the Ministry of Agriculture hold the view to-day, based upon the reasons which I have already submitted to your Lordships, that it is not in the best interests of the farmers themselves to stand in the way of reasonable improvement of the methods of milking cattle and handling milk. For that reason we have been in quite amicable conference with the Ministry of Health in arriving at the final form of this Milk and Dairies Order.

If I may turn straight away to the remarks of my noble friend Lord Clinton, I should like to say that if orders have already been made by certain local authorities in Devon of the drastic character that he describes, requiring immediate alteration of farm buildings or equipment, such action is wholly ultra vires and of course would be discountenanced by the Ministry of Health. I hope that when that circular, to which reference has been made from both sides of the House, is issued, as it will be issued shortly, there will be no recurrence of such drastic and uncalled for action on the part of local authorities. But my noble friend Lord Clinton has said, in almost exactly the same words as those used by Lord Strachie, that there is an immense amount of resentment arising out of this Order. I would humbly suggest to your Lordships that if there is it is founded almost entirely upon lack of knowledge of what the Order contains and of what are the intentions in relation thereto of the Ministry of Health.

Let me take the case which the noble Lord, Lord Strachie, has most emphasised, that of Article 25, which deals with the floors and drains of cowsheds. The whole of the debate, as far as I have been able to understand, on that particular topic has been based upon the idea that the floors of cowsheds, of whatever material they are made now, must in future be made of concrete. There is nothing of the sort in the Order. All that is provided for in that article is that the channels by which liquid is conveyed from the cowstand to the drain shall be of concrete. I cannot believe that that is going to involve the immense expenditure which has been anticipated. But as this is regarded as the article which is most seriously called into question perhaps your Lordships will allow me to read it—because I really cannot believe that, if you knew its exact terms, you could say it is unreasonable: Every cowkeeper shall cause the floor of every cowshed in his occupation to be constructed of such material and in such manner as to render it practicable to remove all liquid matter which may fall thereon, and he shall cause such cowshed to be provided with channels of rendered concrete or other durable and impervious material— so that it includes all sorts of other materials which can be used and will be used— so constructed as to prevent as far as reasonably practicable the soiling of the cows, and so as to receive all such liquid matter and to convey it to a suitable drain or other place of disposal outside such cowshed. That is the most drastic provision which this Order is supposed to contain.

If there is one thing more certain than another with regard to clean milk it is that you cannot get clean milk if the cows continually lie down in their own manure, and every enlightened cowkeeper at the present time is making his cowstands shorter, so that the cows may lie on clean beds and not have their udders resting upon manure. The other article which, I think, has been mostly impugned is that relating to the water supply. Now, is there any noble Lord in this House who would suggest that raw, uncooked milk supplied to the children of this nation should come from buildings where there is no proper water supply?

LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM

The children have done very well in the past.

LORD BLEDISLOE

It is at least open to question whether they could not have done a great deal better. I think it was Lord Banbury who suggested that it would be necessary to put in special apparatus for supplying the cowsheds with water under Article 13, but I am asked to inform the House that the requirements of this article would not be interpreted as involving the laying on of a supply from any public source where this is not readily available, and would commonly be satisfied by such arrangements as would be made in that particular case for domestic purposes. That seems not unreasonable. At any rate, I am sure your Lordships would agree that there is nothing more important than that there should be reasonably clean water brought into contact either with a cow's udder or with the receptacles which contain the milk.

The other article to which reference has been made is Article 12. Your Lordships have already been told, even by our critics, that three years will be allowed to elapse before any structural alterations in connection with floors and drains need be carried out, which surely does allow a more than reasonable latitude for execution of the Order. As regards the other two points raised on Articles 12 and 13, it is true that only eighteen months are allowed, but here again I would suggest that it is a reasonable period, considering the work that is contemplated. Article 12 refers to light and ventilation. I should like to read the article:— Every cowshed and every building used for keeping milk, other than a cold store, shall be provided with a sufficient number of windows or other openings suitably placed and communicating directly with the external air. The windows or permanent openings shall be such as to secure that the building is sufficiently lighted during the hours of daylight and the openings provided for ventilation shall be kept in proper order and so used as to secure that the air in the building is kept in a fresh and wholesome condition. Considering that you are dealing with a raw animal product which is to be consumed by children in this country, surely there is nothing very exacting in demanding that there should be a reasonable amount of light to enable the cowman to see what he is doing, and in order to obtain that sunshine which is known to destroy germs and sufficient ventilation to enable the cattle to be kept in a healthy state. So far as the particular articles that have been commented on are concerned, I really do not think there can be any cause for complaint unless these articles are carried out in an unreasonable manner.

I should like to refer to one other article, Article 8, to which I think my noble friend Lord Strachie referred. It provides: Every county council and county borough council shall cause to be made such inspection of cattle as may be necessary and proper for the purposes of the Act and of this Order. My noble friend Lord Strachie asked: Why should the local authority do this? Why not leave it to the owners?" Supposing the owner does not do it if it is left to him—

LORD STRACHIE

I distinctly said that it should be made the duty of the owner to do it, and that he ought to be prosecuted if he did not do it. The county councils ought not to be put to the expense of looking after the owners, who ought to be responsible for their own acts.

LORD BLEDISLOE

That is exactly the point I was going to make. If the owner does not do it he should be made responsible. But how is the local authority or any one else to discover whether the owner is doing it or not unless that owner's premises are visited from time to time by an officer of the local authority? That is all that this provides for. In that connection my noble friend Lord Strachie obviously regards not merely the Ministry of Health but all local authorities with the most consummate distrust. But in carrying out, the Public Health Act the local authorities have been on the whole extraordinarily efficient, and in this connection I should like to remind the House and the noble Lord that under the Act which the noble Lord himself says he piloted through the House—drastic though it was he piloted it through the House!—such inspection can only be made by a veterinary inspector who is either qualified as a member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons or has such similar qualifications as are approved by the Ministry of Agriculture. It may confidently be assumed that only efficient officers will carry out these inspections.

There is one point raised by my noble friend Lord Clinton and also I think by my noble friend Lord Olivier, in relation to the people who carry on a small business mainly for their own domestic requirements but occasionally sell the surplus milk outside. Frankly, this Order deals with this case for the first time and the justification for it is that persons who buy milk even from the small people are just as much entitled to protection against disease as those who buy it from the larger dealer or producer. Moreover, contrary to the view already put forward in this House, we hold that the presence of an undetected tuberculous animal in small herds such as this—often very small herds consisting, perhaps, of two cattle—is a far more serious danger to the public than where you have a large herd the milk from which may be a different milk, so far as the individual cow is concerned, reaching the individual consumer every day. If you have, say, one or two cattle which happen to be diseased the consumer is having, so to speak, a strong and continuous dose of tuberculosis every day.

LORD OLIVIER

The noble Lord will forgive the interruption, but my criticism and I think the criticism of Lord Clinton did not refer to the inspection of tuberculous cattle but only to the improvement of cow-houses.

LORD CLINTON

Hear, hear.

LORD BLEDISLOE

Yes, I think I can reassure both noble Lords on that. That deals with registration, in fact?

LORD CLINTON

Hear, hear.

LORD BLEDISLOE

As regards registration, the Ministry of Health, although having no jurisdiction which would enable them to give a final decision, have already suggested that in these cases where a person keeping a few cows sells a certain amount of milk and butter outside, that may properly be regarded as not carrying on the trade of a dairyman within the meaning of these Regulations or the Act, and that is the view which will be conveyed to the local authorities. I do not know whether I have touched on all the points that my noble friend Lord Strachie raised; but I want to impress upon your Lordships that the Ministry of Health have not the smallest intention of being drastic in administering this Order. They do, however, want to keep reasonable pace with the public demand so far as the purity of the milk supply is concerned and, if possible, although somewhat behind other civilised countries, to show to the public generally that both the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture want to do all that lies in their power to secure to the public a reasonably pure milk supply.

LORD HINDLIP

May I ask my noble friend to say whether the licence to sell or registration would be refused in the case where a building was condemned before the three years expires?

LORD BLEDISLOE

I beg my noble friend's pardon for not referring to that. I understand that registration will take place in spite of the fact that the structural alterations have not been carried out, and that the registration will continue until such period as the end of the time during which the structural alterations will have to be made.

LORD STRACHIE

My Lords, I regret to say that the noble Lord has not at all satisfied me in what he has said. He admitted, of course, that I am just as anxious as he is that the milk supply of the country should be entirely pure. But he has not dealt with what I said about the great amount of impurity that comes from the handling of the milk and from the condition of the utensils used owing to their not being properly cleaned He also bore out the medical view about the percentage of impure milk, and that seems to me to be a very good reason why this Order should not be so drastic as it is as regards structural alterations, especially as he admitted that in this and other countries the structures are not the cause of 80 per cent. of impure milk.

I noticed that he said that concrete floors were not necessary under this Order. But the provision is so vague that local authorities consider that they are necessary. I have lists of cases in my County in which the county Council has been called upon to replace paved or cobbled floors with concrete, and that is also the view taken by other local authorities in regard to this matter. He also said that there was no intention to be drastic in administering the Order. If there is no intention to be drastic, why not modify the Order? The Ministry of Health is likely to take the doctors' point of view; indeed, a doctor was once at the head of it. The Ministry of Agriculture is much more likely to look at it from the point of view of the farmer and the agriculturist. Why cannot the noble Lord, or why cannot the Ministry of Health, say: "As we do not want to be drastic in administering the Order, we will withdraw it and issue another which will contain an alteration of this particular drastic power." That would seem to be a more businesslike way of dealing with the matter than saying: "We are going to stick to the Order although we admit it is much too drastic and will be misunderstood by the local authorities."

I pointed out that it has already been misunderstood by them; but it is said that a circular is going to be issued explaining what is meant. Some of us know that in some areas it is not only misunderstood but is carried out strictly and the Ministry of Health, we are told, has no jurisdiction to give a final decision. Yet the local authority would have a perfect right to throw this heavy expenditure on a farmer or estate owner who was not at the moment in a position to carry out these requirements. I very much regret, after the answer of the noble Lord, that I must press my Motion to a Division.

On Question, Whether the Motion shall be agreed to?

Their Lordships divided:—Contents, 21; Not-Contents, 63.

CONTENTS.
Lincolnshire, M. (L. Great Chamberlain.) Allendale, V. Clwyd, L.
Bertie of Thame, V. [Teller.] Emmott, L.
Fairfax of Cameron, L.
Beauchamp, E. Armstrong, L. Gainford, L.
Macclesfield, E. Banbury of Southam, L. Hemphill, L.
Strafford, E. Clifford of Chudleigh, L. Illingworth, L.
Meston, L. Shandon, L. Strachie, L. [Teller.]
Redesdale, L. Stanley of Alderley, L. (L. Sheffield.) Sudley, L. (E. Arran.)
NOT-CONTENTS.
Cave, V. (L. Chancellor.) Chaplin, V. Fitz Walter, L.
Devonport, V. Gage, L. (V. Gage.)
Balfour, E. (L. President.) Finlay, V. Hampton, L.
FitzAlan of Derwent, V. Hardinge of Penshurst, L.
Sutherland, D. Haldane, V. Harris, L.
Wellington, D. Hampden, V. Hindlip, L.
Leverhulme, V. Howard of Glossop, L.
Ailesbury, M. Kenmare, L. (E. Kenmare.)
Sheffield, L. Bp. Kenyon, L.
Airlie, E. Worcester, L. Bp. Knaresborough, L.
Birkenhead, E. Lawrence, L.
Clarendon, E. Abinger, L. Muir Mackenzie, L.
De La Warr, E. Arnold, L. Newton, L.
Graham, E. (D. Montrose.) Askwith, L. Olivier, L.
Grey, E. Atkinson, L. Ormonde, L. (M. Ormonde.)
Lovelace, E. Balfour of Burleigh. L. Parmoor, L.
Lucan, E. [Teller.] Biddulph, L. Roundway, L.
Onslow, E. Bledisloe, L. St. John of Bletso, L.
Plymouth, E. [Teller.] Charnwood, L. Suffield, L.
Russell, E. Clinton, L. Templemore, L.
Scarbrough, E. Cottesloe, L. Wittenham, L.
Spencer, E. Darling, L. Wyfold.
Cecil of Chelwood, V. Desbrough, L. Wynford, L.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.