HL Deb 28 July 1931 vol 81 cc1258-63

[The references are to Bill No. (43).]

Page 1, leave out Clause 1.

The Commons disagree to the above Amendment for the following Reason:

Because they consider it desirable that an Agricultural Land Corporation should be constituted for the purpose of promoting agricultural development and of conducting large scale farming operations.

EARL DE LA WARR

My Lords, I beg to move that your Lordships do not insist upon this Amendment.

Moved, That this House doth not insist upon the said Amendment.—(Earl De La Warr.)

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM, who had given Notice that he would move that the House doth insist said: My Lords, this is the matter to which I have just referred, and I do not propose to make a very long speech about it. I have very carefully read and re-read the discussions which took place in Committee in this House, and the careful argument of the Minister in another place. Quite frankly, the arguments adduced in another place do not seem to me to meet the objections which your Lordships took to Clause 1. The clause seems to me to be unjustifiably extravagant, in making experiments which we think are very unlikely to succeed, which even if they do succeed would not prove very much, because the conditions of climate and so on infinitely vary, and which, if they do succeed in proving anything, would not be of assistance to the farmers who are not in a position to carry on large-scale farms, and which would not assist employment, because they are more likely to put people off the land than on the land. In my view, the suggestion that we should set up a Corporation to carry on large-scale experimental farms is not justified, and so far as this clause is concerned we do not see our way to agree to the proposals of the Government. We must therefore insist, if this Bill is to pass into law with the assent of both Houses, that Clause 1 shall disappear from it.

EARL DE LA WARE

I am very sorry the, noble and learned Lord should still feel irreconcilable to this clause, to which the Government attach so much importance. We did feel, in putting this clause into the Bill, and we still feel, that this clause does really offer in the future one way out for certain areas or districts in this country. It is perfectly true to say that it does not make an immediate contribution to the immediate agricultural problem. Experiments of this character must of necessity be conducted on a long-term basis, but at the same time, when we realise that we are told again and again that there are certain areas in this country which cannot continue in farming without a very large subsidy, either at the expense of the taxpayer or the consumer, and then in the same breath are told that it is gross extravagance to experiment and attempt to evolve methods of farming which may make it unnecessary in future years to have these subsidies, then I cannot help feeling that there is very considerable contradiction here.

We propose—I say this because of the charges of extravagance—to spend one million pounds of capital in an effort to bring by experiment the methods of farming in these districts, where we are told that farmers must stick to arable cultivation, into a state to compete with those with whom at the present moment they are unable to compete. That is proposed to be done by placing, as I have said, a million pounds of capital at the disposal of the Corporation, which, whilst fully controlled, so far as it is necessary from the point of view of safeguarding the public interest, should be allowed to run their experiments completely divorced from all political influences. That suggestion requires a million pounds. If any of your Lordships think that you are going to get out of assisting these arable areas to persist in their present efforts for a million pounds, or even a million pounds a year, then I am afraid that some of you are living in a fool's paradise. It is for that reason that I do rather quarrel with the noble and learned Viscount for getting on the high horse of public economy and asking your Lordships to turn down this clause.

We do feel that there are very large possibilities in an experiment conducted in a businesslike manner on these lines, not only in regard to cereal cultivation—and, after all, we cannot disregard that. It is very important. It is essential to certain areas. And how we are ever going to compete again in cereal cultivation I really do not know, unless we are prepared to adopt some new method. It may well be that we can never compete. Very well, if we cannot compete let us accept that fact. Let the taxpayers, if at the behest of noble Lords opposite they like to at a later stage, say that they will support these growers at the public expense. But I think we can be pretty sure that, if the taxpayers do say that, if they are to be asked to support these growers at the public expense, the very least condition they will make is that at any rate they must be satisfied that those growers are cultivating in the most economical way possible.

I think we all agree really that the present method of corn growing as pursued in this country is not the most economical. And I think that has been admitted on the Conservative side when it was said that if this experiment were a success it might result in fewer men being employed on the land. It is perfectly true that, as regards corn growing, that may be so, but I remember on Second Reading I ventured to put this point to your Lordships: are we therefore, in order to keep men employed in cereal growing, to subsidise farmers to enable them to continue employing more men than are really needed for the growing of corn? We all of us know there has been a controversy in the last year or two in the cotton industry as to the number of looms that one man could work. Would it not be just as logical to say that the State should subsidise the cotton industry in order that it may go on employing more men than are really needed for the control of their looms?

But there are other sides of the agricultural industry which require investigation and advance. It has seemed to me sometimes that perhaps too much emphasis has been put on the cereal side of the problem in relation to this clause. There is an immense work to be done, for instance, in experimenting—and it has been started already on a small scale—with some of the Welsh hill grazings. Then, there is the growing of fruit run in conjunction with a canning factory—I think rather on the lines suggested in a letter to The Times by the noble Lord, Lord Ernie. Surely, it might be a very profitable and useful experiment for this Corporation to be allowed to set up a large demonstration fruit farm in one of the depressed areas, with a canning factory in the middle of it, and on the outskirts a number of the small holdings which are intended to be set up under Clause 2. I should have thought there were immense possibilities of development for a scheme of that kind, in an attempt to get certain areas of this country, which at the present moment are attempting to grow crops which it does not pay them to grow, to turn over to different methods and the production of different commodities.

For these among other reasons I would suggest to your Lordships that the step that you are asked to take this afternoon, once more to eliminate Clause 1 from this Bill, is a retrograde step, and a step that years hence we shall look back upon with regret, because years hence we shall still need to make this experiment. But then you will have to start right from the beginning, having lost all the years that will have intervened. For these reasons I hope that your Lordships will not agreed to the proposal of the noble and learned Viscount.

LORD HASTINGS

My Lords, the noble Earl has advanced to the House many reasons why his scheme for the setting up of this Corporation, with its large-scale farming, should be permitted to pass into law. He has avoided with the greatest care touching upon the human aspect of the case, and it was one which made a tremendous appeal to those who live in the country and have a regard for the interests of those who are already established on the land. On the Second Reading, now so long ago, I ventured to say that there could be only one consequence of the success of the scheme of large-scale farming, and that consequence would be that it should be followed up; and, if it were to be followed up, it would mean the displacement of hundreds, nay even thousands, of small farmers and labourers who are already established upon the land. No noble Lord could conscientiously vote for the insertion in the Bill of a clause which was going to have that effect. No matter how sound the business reasons that might be advanced for it, yet those business reasons must stand down in favour of the human aspect of the case. I cannot believe it possible that any noble Lord could bring himself to vote for the inclusion of such a clause when the risks are so great, if that clause, when carried into operation, were as successful as the noble Earl expects and hopes it will be. How on earth a clause of this kind ever emanated from a Labour Government, I am totally unable to understand.

When we were children a certain king was held up to us in execration for enclosing a large area of England that he might be able to hunt the deer therein. Surely, the Labour Government does not propose to devastate large areas of England of their existing population, not that deer may live there, but in order that tractors may hold sway? It is an impossible proposition; and, if there were no other argument but the one which I have referred to, I personally, and I believe every other noble Lord in this House, would vote against this clause; and I trust greatly that the House will follow the advice of the noble and learned Viscount who leads the Opposition.

LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM

My Lords, the noble Lord has advanced very strong reasons from the human point of view for disagreeing with the proposal of the noble Earl opposite. May I advance some reasons from the business point of view? We all know that a Government after the War started farming in different parts of the country. They lost large sums of money on every farm, and the result was that they were obliged to give up the scheme, cease farming, and let private individuals continue the operation of farming. With that experience behind us, what likelihood is there of the present Government doing any better than the last Government which undertook farming operations? The noble Earl asks us, at a moment when the financial position of the country is about as serious as it possibly can be, to venture a million of money in starting this Corporation, to be followed by the expenditure of another five millions for the purchase of land. I cannot conceive anything more futile than for a Government to attempt to start farming operations under the idea that they are going to be successful where private individuals have failed. The arguments of the noble Lord who has just sat down are to my mind absolutely conclusive even supposing that I thought the Government were going to make a success of it. As I am quite certain they will only lose money and as I do not want to hand over any more money to the tax collector than I have to hand over at present—which, in my opinion, is a great deal too much—I shall certainly support my noble friend below me. I am glad that he has taken this line and I hope he will take a similar line on other occasions.

May I remind the noble and learned Lord who leads the House that last May when he wished to alter the date of the Third Reading of this Bill from June 9

Resolved in the negative: the said Amendment insisted upon accordingly.