AGRICULTURAL MARKETING BILL. (Hansard, 29 July 1931)

§ LORD MARLEY
My Lords, in the absence of my noble friend Lord De La Warr, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.

§ LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM
My Lords, on the Motion for Second Reading I objected to this Bill on the ground that it took away from the farmer the right to regulate the conduct of his busi- 1300 ness and prevented him selling the products of that business in the way he thought best. Since then Amendments have been introduced into the Bill but they have not really improved it, and in my opinion it is still a very bad Bill. Turning to Clause 5 I see that schemes may be made to regulate marketing and to encourage co-operation, education and research. I see also that the board is empowered to buy, sell, or let for hire to registered producers anything required for the production, adaptation for sale or sale of the regulated product. Then the board can determine the kind, variety or grade of the product which may be sold. Again, they can empower any person authorised in writing by the board to enter any premises, and can ask the producer to furnish the board with such estimates, returns, accounts, and other information relating to the regulated product as the board considers necessary for the operation of the scheme. And Clause 6 says that nobody can sell anything unless he is a registered producer. What does all that mean? It means that the unfortunate farmer is to be put to all sorts of trouble and expense in order that the board may sell that which he has produced. What chance is there that the board will get any better price than the man himself?

§ LORD PARMOOR
Every chance.

§ LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM
The board must have officials and offices, and that will entail expense. We all know that any Government—I do not care whether it is a Socialist, a Conservative or a Liberal Government; all Governments are as bad—when it attempts to carry on business fails. They do not do it as well as the ordinary person whose sole interest is in the carrying on of his business.
When you have regulated all these things, what is going to happen? You do not prevent the foreigner sending his goods into the country. Therefore, the result of regulating the price will be either that the price so regulated must he above the price at which the foreigner sends his goods in, which will not pay the English producer, or it must be below that price, which also will not pay the English producer. If you hold your goods and do not sell them at the price which the foreigner accepts you will be left with a large quantity of 1301 goods on hand, exactly in the same way as the Board for the Regulation of Wheat in Canada is left with a large stock of wheat on hand at the present time which cannot be sold at a remunerative price. There is a tendency at the moment to imagine that when people are unable to be successful in business you can make them successful by talking about organisation and re-organisation and a lot of other long words which mean nothing whatever. You can only make a business successful if the producer of an article can sell it for more than it costs him to produce.
Assuming, for the sake of argument (and this has been advanced here) that another Government put a duty on foreign products and by that means enabled the board to sell at a better price than is obtained at the present moment, what would happen under this Bill? There is a consumers' committee. Directly a farmer got a little bit more for his wheat the consumers' committee would come in and say: "This is very bad for the consumer. He has to pay a little more for his bread. We cannot allow it." Therefore, though with one hand you are endeavouring to raise the price, with the other hand you are enacting that it cannot be raised. It seems to me that the Bill is full of anomalies. I do not know what the farmer will say when it happens that one of his competitors, who has been helped by the board with tractors, horses and cattle, not being a very good business man goes into the Bankruptcy Court and the bank requires the money to be repaid. As I read the Bill, the unfortunate farmer whose competitor has been assisted will have to find the money. Like so many Bills that have been brought in of late years this Bill is supposed, on the face of it, to do something which is supposed to be good. As a matter of fact it will do nothing but evil. The only hope is that it will remain a dead letter as so many Bills remain.
I am aware that it is of no use attempting to divide on the Third Reading though I should very much like to do so, but I thought I should like to say that I have ventured to prophesy that this Bill will do no good. I should like to draw the attention of your Lordships, especially of noble Lords sitting below me, to the fact that I have said that. If in two 1302 or three years time I am still alive and I venture to remind them that I said the Bill was going to be a failure and it is a failure, I hope they will remember that I took what steps I could in my humble way to put them in the right path.

§ VISCOUNT NOVAR
My Lords, I regret that I was unable to be present during the earlier stages of this Bill and have, therefore, very little right to trouble your Lordships with any views on Third Reading. But I would say that this Bill adds enormously to the complexities of conducting agriculture. It is a Bill that will be run by the wrong men. The men who attend to their own farms cannot be bothered with, and have not the time for, all the complications in which they will be involved by this Bill. The Amendments which were proposed to ensure that a substantial majority of those on the register should take part in the constitution of the bodies required were not accepted, and it is the people who know least about agriculture, the busybodies, the wire-pullers and the log rollers, who will run this organisation and Bill.
I understand about agricultural co-operation. I have been many years connected with it, and I regret that the agricultural organisation in Scotland has become involved in this Bill. I have withdrawn from that organisation in consequence. I think it made a false step. The result will not help agriculture, and to put this forward as a means of assisting agriculture is assuming what is not the fact. I have no ulterior views about tariff or anything of that sort. I am a Free Trader, but I believe, if you are going to have Protection, you must have it all round, and you cannot set agriculture on its legs by these false devices which will bring about fresh complications that will hinder a man who knows his business from conducting it in his own way. In all undertakings you always come back to the individual in the end, but in no case do you come back upon the individual so certainly as in the conduct of agriculture. You are interfering with the farmer individually. You are ensuring that the wrong men shall get the control of this organisation, and I entirely agree with my noble friend who has just spoken that this Bill will be a failure, and is one which I think ought to have been rejected on Second Reading.

§ EARL STANHOPE
My Lords, I only want to say one word. Those of us who sit on this side of the House do not unanimously hold the views which have just been expressed. I hope my noble friend behind me, Lord Banbury, will be able to have cause to withdraw his opinion within a good deal less than three years. If he came from my part of the world he would know that the hop growers, of whom I am not one, are anxious that a Bill of this kind should be passed. They have a high protective duty so there is no competition from abroad, but this Bill will deal with the surplus hops and will also deal with the surplus of other produce such as potatoes. May I give this instance? The Minister of Agriculture stated in the House of Commons that the normal annual value of the potato crop in this country is about £20,000,000. In the year 1928–29 the potato crop was from ten to fifteen per cent. above the normal, with the result that there were more potatoes than could be consumed. As there was nobody to deal with the surplus, the market was flooded, and the potato crop that year was valued at only £11,500,000 instead of £20,000,000. If we can get some organisation such as I believe this Bill establishes to enable that surplus to be dealt with either by feeding it to pigs or putting it upon the land as manure, we shall be able to keep up the annual value of the potato crop to £20,000,000 instead of £11,500,000. I think farmers will be inclined to welcome this Bill rather than take the view of my noble friend.

§ LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM
But will the Bill do it?

§ EARL STANHOPE
If the farmers choose to apply the machinery of this Bill it can be done. It is entirely in the hands of the farmers themselves. It is not in the hands of this Government, or a Conservative Government, or any Government, but in the hands of the farmers themselves. I arm surprised that my noble friend Lord Novar took the strong attitude that he did against the Bill. I was informed that the Farmers' Union in Scotland was in favour of this Bill.

§ VISCOUNT NOVAR
I have nothing to do with the Farmers' Union in Scotland. I never would touch them with a pair of tongs.

§ LORD MARLEY
My Lords, I am very sorry, in view of the three most interesting speeches we have listened to, that my noble friend Lord De La Warr was unable to be here this afternoon owing to a public engagement. The noble Lord, Lord Banbury, suggested that if he lived another three years he would see the failure of the Bill. I hope he will live very much longer than another three years, because we want his criticism in this House. I hope he will live to see the success of the Bill. I would suggest that perhaps the present position is not so perfect that some improvement might not be made. In agriculture better organisation is surely an assistance.