§ THE EARL OF DARNLEY had the following Notice on the Paper: To move to resolve, That as certain sections of the horticultural trade have been forced to destroy large percentages of their stock in trade without compensation and are about to be called upon to make further sacrifices, such procedure constitutes an unfair and unique burden and is in grave need of readjustment.
§ The noble Earl said: My Lords, I confess that I come before you to-day with a sense of disappointment. I have had the subject of this Motion in my mind for a long time; but, on seeing among the list of Motions to be presented to your Lordships one by the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, on the subject of war-time nurseries, I rather foolishly imagined that this had taken the onus out of my hands, and that it would be in the hands of someone much abler than myself. I was, however, mistaken, because Lord Nathan's Motion had to do with babies, which are rather more important than bulbs, with which my own Motion is concerned. I wish that the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, could have been here to-day so that he could show some interest in nurseries as a whole!
§ Although I speak with disappointment, I speak also with very great seriousness, as I think that the words of my Motion will show. I want to enlist the sympathy of your Lordships on behalf of a small section of the community who are suffering what I think must be regarded as a unique hardship. I refer to those concerned in the nursery garden trades. It is only a small, and possibly at this moment not a vital, branch of the trading community, but that does not seem to justify its suffering what amounts to a capital levy, and the fact that very much worse is about to befall it. I maintain 697 that no other section of the trading community has suffered, or is going to suffer, anything of the same kind. I shall not burden your Lordships with too many details. Many of you, I know, are great gardeners, and I wish that I could enlist the support of the noble Viscount, the Leader of the House and also of the noble Duke, the Duke of Devonshire, but I am afraid that is impossible. I wish to refer to what sections of this trade have suffered, and to what they are about to suffer as a result of what I will call "the new order," because I am referring to an Order which is in course of preparation and about to be issued, and I know that your Lordships, in these days, will not have much trust in anything which goes by the name of "new order."
§ The first section to which I refer grows food and nothing else—vegetables, fruit trees and so on. Here there is to be no interference by the Government, nor is there likely to be. In fact, those concerned are likely to be encouraged, so that I need not bother about them. The second section grows trees and shrubs and herbaceous plants for sale. Those engaged in this section of the trade have not suffered from any forced clearance of their capital stocks, but they have been asked voluntarily to clear as much of the ground as they can, and those who have done so will, by the new Order, be allowed to plant 10 per cent. with newly-propagated plants. Then there are those who grow bulbs for sale, and bulbs and herbaceous plants and annuals for the purpose of selling the produce as cut flowers. These, up to date, have suffered a forced loss of 50 per cent. of their capital, except in the case of tulips, of which they have been allowed to retain 75 per cent., in order to export tulip bulbs to America and elsewhere. Those in this section are going to be reduced by an all-round cut to 25 per cent., of what they had in 1939. Lastly, there is the glasshouse industry, which has now been reduced to 25 per cent. of all products which are not eatable, by comparison with the 1939 production. The new Order will provide that: they are not to be allowed any heat in winter for growing anything but foodstuffs, but this will be subject to the discretion of their own war agricultural committees, who will be enabled to allow them up to 25 per cent. in the case of certain selected and valuable stocks.
698§ In the case of those last two sections of the trade, I maintain that the forced abolition of their capital stocks constitutes in fact a capital levy. I have heard talk of capital levies for a very long time, and as your Lordships know, they have often been discussed; but I have never yet heard that they were legal. However, if you remove 75 per cent. of a firm's capital, and most of it is converted into excess profits, it can only be called a capital levy. I have heard of capital levies in the past as affecting only 5 to 10 per cent. of capital. Yet here is a capital levy of 75 per cent., standing out boldly and unashamed, and at the same time it is, apparently, completely illegal. There is to be no compensation, except for subsidies on vegetables, which are for the most part sold at a controlled price, and which could not be produced but for the subsidy. Moreover, a capital levy usually produces something, at any rate, for the Government; but this capital levy, since sales have been difficult in the past and often restricted, and in fact have been mainly for tulips, will produce no profit except for the incinerator and the rubbish heap.
§ I think that this is a unique burden. I have searched very carefully through all the other trades and the hardships imposed on trades, and even on private individuals, and I can find nothing comparable—no enforced destruction of stock-in-trade without compensation. I know perfectly well that many small traders of different kinds have been forced to go out of business from lack of supplies and from lack of custom, but they have not lost their capital stock-in-trade; they have been allowed to keep it until such time as the sunny days come again. I think you can make an analogy of what is being done to the gardening trade by supposing that the Government wanted a large area of land to make an aerodrome, and on it there were a lot of houses, and the Government said to the owners of these houses:" You can just destroy your houses now—anyhow, three-quarters of them. We are not going to give you any compensation for these houses. But if you want a good job, go and work on the aerodrome; they will pay you well there."
§ I hope it will not be thought I do not realize the seriousness of the position. I know perfectly well that the food question is vital, and I fully realize with some 699 sadness that the people of this country are going to be thrown more and more on to a diet which I most intensely dislike, that is, cabbage cooked until its goodness has gone down the drain and its odour has penetrated to every corner of the house, and then mashed up by the cook into some sort of castellated shape with a criss-cross on the top. But I also realize that this trade has two assets which the country urgently needs to-day—namely, land to grow vegetables, and the workers to be employed in growing them. But I was very surprised in a conversation with an official of the Ministry to learn that the amount of land which is going to be saved by the so-called new Order, is a very small amount indeed—just a few thousand acres—and that it could be obtained elsewhere. But the indispensable thing was to get the workers employed in vital trades, and to take them off anything which could go by the name of a pleasure trade. This may be true, but I know lots of other pleasure trades which are maintained, possibly on a much smaller scale, but at any rate their capital stock has not been subject to destruction. Let me give a few of them. There are art, books, cinemas, theatres, music, games and sports. Of course, these are quite rightly maintained for the edification of the populace, to prevent their minds dwelling entirely on the war, and to give them change and refreshment.
§ But even if you do not admit sentiment—I know it is not of much account perhaps in these days—I believe there is more joy for the people in the flower trade than in all the others put together. I believe that if you took a poll of all the pleasure trades I have mentioned, the flower trade would take a very high place. I would like in this connexion to quote two lines from a letter received by the owner of a garden from the women's branch of the British Legion in a provincial town. These people went to see this garden and they said: "It has given great pleasure to all of us who saw the wonderful glory of flowers." I think that is a very unique expression; I do not think you would hear it said of any of the other pleasure trades I have mentioned. I certainly do not think you would hear it on a racecourse, unless it happened to be the name of a horse, and I think it conveys much better than I can what the effect of flowers is on the public. 700 But if you will not admit that any sentiment or any beauty can be of value nowadays, and everything must be hard facts, that is no justification for isolating this trade from all the others, and if such a thing has been done I think it urgently needs redress.
§ I know that there are many categories of growers, and that many of them have made large sales of their stocks and products, either plants or vegetables. Some may say that they have made a large profit, but if "profit" still has its original meaning—namely, a financial gain—I hope to be able to show later on that these profits are not profits at all, but losses. But, of course, as in every other trade, those in a large way of business have the advantage of funds, by which they can-wipe off their capital losses, and they have expensive gear with which they can work the change-over. So they are in a better position. But that does not apply to small traders. There are many hundreds of these, in Cornwall and in Lincolnshire especially, many of them ex-Service men. They hold a few acres—I forgot to say at the beginning that areas under one acre are exempt—many of them may have just a little over one acre, they have built up their stocks by hard work, and all their capital is under the ground. These people have none of the advantages of the large grower. They have no machinery or capital to finance the turnover, they have no capital with which to write off their losses. They cannot grow vegetables which are of a paying quality and at the end of the war they will have no money to replace the capital they have lost. It will take them many years to restock their land—all with their own undivided efforts—and at a period when there will be no profits coming in to help them. They will have no compensation at all, and I maintain that they are indeed badly treated.
§ But whether small or big the result of their aggregate treatment will affect the trade as a whole in a number of ways. Seventy-five per cent. of their capital will be gone for ever. They cannot create a sinking fund by sales because the results go in Excess Profits Tax, and replacement will be difficult at the end of the war because there will be no funds to buy at the high prices which will obtain. Many of their hands will come back from the 701 war and will ask for re-employment, but they will be unable to give it them, and so there will be unemployment. Many of them will go out of business. This trade, which the Government have helped so much in the past, is therefore in great danger of becoming a moribund concern. At the Ministry of Agriculture this question cropped up. It was said that if the growers at the end of the war still had 25 per cent. of their capital left and the value of such stocks had gone up by 400 per cent., they would be just as well off. I hope your Lordships will not allow this for one moment. Surely, it would be establishing a very bad precedent. Are all our possessions to be subject to removal by the Government over and above their prewar valuation? Supposing one of your Lordships, for instance, had two motor cars or two horses, or two chickens, and somebody came round and said:" These things have gone up 100 per cent.; we are going to take one of them ". Would you allow that? It would be especially serious with chickens—although I do not want to anticipate the noble Lord whose Motion comes after mine—especially if one of the chickens happened to be a cock and the other a hen.
§ To return to the categories for a minute. There are also a small number of people who are difficult to put into a category who may be called specialists. They grow rare stocks, possibly the result of expeditions in the Himalayas, or possibly things they have invented or raised themselves, and these people have the same difficulties or hardships except that at the end of the war they will not be able to replace them at all. Then there are those who grow trees and shrubs for sale as such. In France you can move trees as high as this Chamber in a tub if you want to, but in England they do not do that. In France you can practically buy a garden thirty years old ready made and have it removed to your own place, but in England these trees and shrubs get much too big to move. These people have been asked to clear parts of their land and those who have done so are now, I understand, to be allowed to replant 10 per cent. of such cleared land with re-propagated stocks. This is not as generous as it sounds. The old stocks become useless after a few years except for exhibition purposes now no longer existing. So the 90 per cent. becomes as good as dead and their existing 702 capital is only 10 per cent. and this requires a generous revision.
§ I want to say a special word about glass. Here of course there is no alternative land. There is no alternative glass under which to put the plants that require heat. I should like to tell your Lordships the details of the Order once again. Their stocks are down to 25 per cent., and the Order says they are to be allowed no heating for growing stocks that are not edible except at the discretion of the local war agricultural committee. If you get a kind war agricultural committee their condition will be the same as, but not any better than, the rest of the trade after the new Order. I suppose your Lordships know that at the present time many thousands of tons of roses, carnations, lilies, and chrysanthemums have been thrown away. If the war agricultural committees are not sympathetic, the whole lot will go. Then there will be no propagation from any balance of stocks. This winter there will be no forced tulips or daffodils to delight the hearts of the people after the snow and ice, there will be no plants in your Lordships' hot-houses, and perhaps, if it goes on much longer, we shall not be able to buy an aspidistra for our front parlour !
§ There is one other category which does not come into it, and which is composed of all, and that is the mixed nurseries. Your Lordships will know that every provincial town has one or two of these on the outskirts, and they supply everything that the people in these towns can possibly want for their gardens. They give them trees for their parks, shrubs for their shrubberies, herbaceous plants for their borders, seeds for their kitchen gardens, and everything else. These come partly into the forced categories and partly into the voluntary categories. If you want to use land which has trees and shrubs in it and grow something else you have to give it, as your Lordships know, a very thorough and costly cultivation and you have to spend a lot of money on fertilizers. These people cannot do that for they have neither the machinery nor the money. Also they are short of hands. They perhaps have one old man to help them. I have been to several of these places, and there you will see vast empty spaces with a few meagre rows of vegetables, which are not going to bring any profit to them and not very 703 much food to the people. These growers cannot help it. It is not their fault that the cuts are having a serious effect on them and are not much benefit to anybody.
§ That is the end of my tale of woe that the trade has to undergo. I am sorry it has been somewhat sad, but I could very easily have made it worse. Now I am going to do something rather rash, and try and anticipate the noble Duke's reply for the Government. Firstly, I assume he is going to say that the land and the staff required on it are absolutely vital to the country at the moment. Secondly, as the Minister said either in another place or in a speech outside—I forget which—the growers are doing well out of the change-over. Thirdly, and most important, this new Order and the previous Orders have, in fact, been agreed between the trade, the Horticultural Advisory Committee, and the Minister. The third point is obviously the most important. I am going to take it first. I admit that these cuts have been agreed, but I do not think that that necessarily makes them fair. These growers are intensely patriotic, and under pressure they have agreed to cut their trade in a way that is going to cause them great damage and loss. I do not think that that justifies acceptance by the Ministry.
§ I should like to give your Lordships some details about what I gather happened at these meetings with the Committee concerned. I have been at great pains to find this out truthfully. I know a great many of the trade, and know some of those concerned. The Government represented that they had very extensive demands on the land now occupied with plants. They said that the needs of the country were absolutely vital, and they were going to be inflexible. That amounts to offering the trade a choice as to the manner of its own death. It is rather similar to giving a notorious criminal a revolver in lieu of executing him. The growers made these proposals, as I said before, from feelings of intense patriotism. They wanted to avoid compulsion and to go further than the Ministry possibly could go.
§ If the noble Duke is going to maintain that this agreement is fair, I should like to ask him respectfully if his Ministry has made such a bargain with any other body 704 or trade. I am not taking this as an example, and I hope the noble Duke will believe me, because of his personal interest in the matter; I am only doing it because it contains a reference to land in large quantities; but I would ask, has any agreement of this kind been made with blood stock breeders or trainers? Has anything of the kind been made with those who own sports grounds of various kinds—golf courses, cricket grounds, and so on? I am not asking whether they have been asked to cut down, or have been clocked of food, and thus ultimately compelled to reduce their stock. I am asking, has any bargain been made with them to reduce their stock without compensation? I am going to ask him this also. Does he know of any other trade outside his own Ministry which has been forced into such a bargain with any other branch of the Government? I am going to ask him this too, whether his Ministry does, in fact, compensate farmers for loss of stock through foot-and-mouth disease, and also farmers who have had their land appropriated for aerodromes or military training when their crops were halfway to maturity and were going to be a total loss. If the answer to the first part is in the negative and the second in the affirmative, how can it be said that such a bargain, without compensation, is fair?
§ The second answer that I am rashly assuming the noble Duke will make is that these people have been doing well out of it. I am going to try and prove that this so-called "doing well" is in fact a loss and not a profit. I know perfectly well that large sums have been made by certain growers of bulbs by selling abnormal amounts of their capital stocks, but the conversion of capital into Excess Profits Tax is not profit. The burning of your stock is certainly a loss. I always understood, although I am not an expert in finance, that if you sold your capital you had to reinvest it or put it to sinking fund, otherwise it went by the name of "living on capital," which is one of the deadly sins of finance. I also know many who have made money by selling substitute vegetables, but I always understood that if you went in for a new trade such as this you had to put the profit to replacement of capital. If the trade is learning these financial methods, they are methods which a child could condemn and tell them they were extremely bad 705 for them. This all depends on the fact that the trade now is not subject to gluts. It is not the case now for many thousands of sacks of cheap vegetables, such as cabbages and lettuces, to be thrown away in the markets at certain times, chiefly because everybody produces their cabbages and lettuces within the period of a few weeks, and because there is another period when all the allotments and private gardens are discharging all their produce into the householder's kitchen. It is also subject to the trade not being subject to over-production after the war when international trade will be resumed, and during the difficult period that will then arise.
§ The last point I presume the Government may make is that the land and the men are absolutely indispensable, and especially because, as I heard the Minister say the other day more land is being taken for war training. If the Ministry has said that the land is only a few thousand acres, it is not more indispensable than the sports grounds and golf courses and other open spaces of land which arc quite rightly kept for the edification of the people, so why should not this few thousand acres be reserved to keep the stocks alive for the solvency of the growers and for the life of this threatened trade? But as to the men and women they are of course different. If they come into any of the categories of service and are wanted by the Government for food production, then they must go, but there does not seem to be any reason why these growers should not be permitted to let their grandmothers and grandfathers and their children, and anyone they can justifiably find, help them to kept their capital intact for better days, as other trades are allowed to do. This will not interfere with the growing of food.
§
I hope I have made a clear case and explained, not at too great a length and without what the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, calls a lectern, the matter satisfactorily to your Lordships. If I have put the matter in a manner that you approve of I would like to enlist your help and support in pressing, as I am going to try and do, these four points on the noble Duke who replies for the Ministry. I will put them in the form of four questions: Firstly, is the burden unique? Secondly, is the new Order going to make it intolerable? Thirdly, is the
706
bargain unique, and is it harsh and unconscionable and, therefore, revocable "as they call it in law. Fourthly, is compensation justly due? I would like to quote one more small extract from a prominent trade paper called the Horticullural Trades Journal.) This is in the editorial of June 25, which says:
The amount of valuable stock which will be destroyed will put (he floricultural calendar of Britain back two decades.
§ I hope the noble Duke and your Lordships will not think that for one moment I am trying to disparage the Ministry of Agriculture. Of course I am not. I realize that the Ministry has done marvellous work. I know that it has reclaimed vast areas of forest and scrub, that it has improved enormously the position of the badly farmed farms, and that it has done wonderful things for the fruit trade and the vital vegetable production of this country; but all the same I think I would ask for the removal of something which might perhaps be called a petty injustice. I think I can put it this way, that if the Ministry has made the desert blossom as the rose, if it wishes to keep this simile in existence, it must keep the rose in existence.
§ If your Lordships will support me in this, I am going to say with some eagerness and seriousness that it would be-fair to this trade now to revoke the new Order. I also think that, in fairness, it should be subject to these two things—that that nobody in the labour categories is employed, and that there is land to the amount of these few thousand acres available elsewhere for the necessary food supply. It is also fair to ask the Ministry to use its good offices with the Treasury to get compensation for those who have lost abnormal stocks of their capital by sales in the past. This could be easily calculated by taking sales over an average of, say, five years—that is only a suggestion—and also allowing compensation for stocks forcibly destroyed on the basis of the amounts written off in their taxation accounts. The trades' gratitude would be enormous if that were done. I am sure, then, those engaged in them would be able to weather the storm. But even if this is done, with shortage of staff they will have increasing troubles from disease and from overcrowding. If this can be achieved the wonderful glory of flowers will yet have a chance to play its part in redeeming the wonderful misery of war.
707§ Moved to resolve, That as certain sections of the horticultural trade have been forced to destroy large percentages of their stock in trade without compensation and are about to be called upon to make further sacrifices, such procedure constitutes an unfair and unique burden and is in grave need of readjustment.—(The Earl of Darnley.)
LORD PHILLIMOREMy Lords, I remember that when I was last in the House, the Leader of the House made a remark, which I have heard before and which is worth making, that in this House you could find an expert on every subject. Now we have got, if we did not know it before, an expert on aspidistras. He has brought to the subject of debate a volume of knowledge to which I cannot pretend to aspire, for, indeed, I am not an expert on this particular subject. I am concerned simply with the pure question of whether justice is being done to a small body of men. No one in your Lordships' House would wish even 2,000 acres, which I gather is now the figure, to be withdrawn from the food production campaign unless very weighty reasons were given for its preservation. Of course the few hundred men who are concerned in this matter are not a very strong or very numerous body, but if their stocks are reduced, whether by actual compulsion, or by agreement with a threat of compulsion behind it, to 25 per cent. of what they were before, and no compensation whatever is given, is that quite fair? I am not sure that I am right, and the noble Duke will correct me if I am wrong, but I imagine that if the Air Force decide they must have an extra hundred acres for a given aerodrome and must have it quick, and those hundred acres are covered with, say, wheat half grown, the farmer gets some compensation for that wheat crop. Well, if he is entitled to compensation for that seizure in the national interest why are these little flower men not entitled also to compensation? That is really the only point I want to make, and I hope the noble Duke will be able to satisfy us that justice is being done to this small body of men.
LORD THURLOWMy Lords, many years ago when I was a youngster having left the University, I held a small job under the Board of Agriculture which, while apparently unimportant, gave me the advantage of getting into personal 708 touch with a very large number of our farmers in Worcestershire, a County which Lord Baldwin has made known to so many who have never seen it, and in Warwickshire, a place which we associate with Stratford-on-Avon. Later, after those years, which to me were years of training, I was moved to Liverpool, where the call of the sea rather led me to feel that my vocation lay elsewhere. It is only in recent years that I came south and found myself once more in the middle of farms and of vegetable gardens and market gardens.
In a recent debate we discussed, I think fairly fully, the question of waste which was apt to be due to an honoured Minister of Food having not perhaps found sufficient time to provide centres in towns, so that the stuff was dumped up to London and then sent back and dumped into the ground in the country. What we are asked to do now is to consider the subject from a different angle—the grievances of certain people who have put their capital into market gardening or into the growing of bulbs, or into the growing of flowers. Some people may argue that this is not the time to talk about flowers when the war has reached perhaps its greatest height, but most of us know what a joy it is if you go to the East End of London and can take a few flowers to cheer up the people there. At present roses do not require much in the way of supplementary training—round where I live they grow in enormous clusters—but if it is found possible to make arrangements to enable the bulb growers to carry on during the next twelve months so that they do not lose their capital or so that, if owing to the exigencies of war they do lose their capital, they at any rate receive adequate compensation, I think it would be fairer all round.
We all naturally feel for the under dog, and in the case of small people who have put their savings into tomatoes or lettuces or something of the sort, it is hard, if through no fault of their own, their savings are lost owing to excess profits having eaten them all up. They have already certain natural difficulties to face. Only the other day there was a cloudburst in a district I know very well, and one grower in the neighbourhood lost £2,000 worth of tomatoes. Many others suffered in certain degrees. Everyone who has a garden 709 of any sort suffered in some degree. That was inevitable. But we do want to see fair play for those about whom the noble Earl has spoken so eloquently. Their staffs are invariably reduced, but if they can be enabled to carry on, possibly by means of a grant which would cover the difficult time, or a promise of help to enable them to resume their business when the war is over, their particular hardship will be perhaps met. I do not feel that I ought to detain your Lordships any longer except to express my sympathy with the noble Earl who has brought forward this Resolution.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (THE DUKE OF NORFOLK)My Lords, the Motion which has been introduced by the noble Earl is one which I think I need have no hesitation in saying will command sympathy from your Lordships. Naturally in these clays we do not want, if we can help it, to take away any of the livelihoods or luxuries that may remain to a certain group of people, but if I may say so, the noble Earl seemed rather to stress the blacker side. As he is, and I am not, an expert on this particular form of production, I wonder if he has not possibly rather more personal views in the matter than we have who have to look upon the various forms of production as a whole. The situation is that when this war started there was approximately 24,000 acres of land which was producing flowers and bulbs. With the pressing necessity for producing food, that is not an inconsiderable amount of land. Moreover, the land having been cultivated to produce these rare; forms of bulbs was, and is, in very good heart and a high state of fertility. The noble Earl said that there was other land in the country. I think that most of your Lordships know that my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture has left very few acres that are not ploughed up when he has found them. It is obviously more important to use land which is in good heart than land which will need a great quantity of fertilizers to bring it back to a good state.
THE EARL OF DARNLEYMay I interrupt the noble Duke to say that the information I got about a few thousand acres of land and that they were not indispensable, but could be replaced, came from the Ministry of Agriculture?
THE DUKE OF NORFOLKIf the noble Earl was so informed I am afraid I should have to differ. Labour which is used in these gardens is very essential for growing other forms of food and we have to remember also that fuel is used in the hothouses. That that should be curtailed in view of the present situation regarding fuel I cannot believe anyone will doubt. Flowers have to be delivered fresh, because they lose their value if they are not delivered fresh, and that means a call on transport. Warning that this was going to happen was first given to the growers in 1939, and in order not to be too hard on those who had sunk their capital in this form of business the reduction in acreage was introduced gradually. The first cut was made in 1941 when a reduction was made to 75 per cent. There was a further reduction in acreage to 50 per cent. in 1942 and what the noble Earl termed the new Order—it is not yet out—will, as he rightly stated, reduce the prewar acreage by a further 25 per cent. In other words, the growers will be left with 25 per cent. of their pre-war acreage.
These reductions up to the present time, cannot reasonably be said to have weighed too heavily on these growers. The export trade for these bulbs has been considerable, particularly—the noble Lord I think mentioned it—to the United States. The prices of cut flowers, as many of your Lordships will know, have risen appreciably during the last two years. On the question as to whether this cut is to be the last one I can give no guarantee. But I will say that it is the policy of the Government to retain a nucleus of land for stock so that this industry may be rebuilt and replaced on a sound and firm basis as soon as the war is over. Every effort will be made to do that. It is also quite definite that the industry has agreed to this new cut, and I would here like to tell the noble Lord that, although I was not present at the meeting, I have no hesitation in saying that it was not forced upon the people by threats of compulsion. The situation to-day is extremely serious from the shipping point of view, and it is only right that all land which can be made available should be utilized in order to save shipping. The noble Lord claims that these people have done this out of patriotism. They have my entire sympathy, but I would point out that there arc man}' other people who have also shown their patriotism. When the 711 noble Lord asks me if the manner in which these people are treated is unique I can only tell him what happens to be in my mind at the moment because I have to speak about it later to-day—I refer to figures in regard to poultry. At this moment the commercial breeder has been reduced to one-eighth whereas these people are still maintaining 25 per cent.
LORD PHILLIMOREBut surely the two cases are quite different, and the bulb grower is thrown over altogether.
THE DUKE OF NORFOLKThe noble Lord asked me a question with regard to compensation. The farmer is compensated for the value of the crop if he should lose much. If he should lose his farm he loses his land, which he possibly may not, and possibly will not, ever cultivate again. I do not know whether these cases are parallel.
THE DUKE OF NORFOLKYes, he is compensated for the crop on the land, but not compensated for the fact that he will not be able to use that land again.
LORD PHILLIMOREIf you lose your flowers and have to use your land to grow vegetables you may not get so large a return. If you lose your farm you have not the land to cultivate.
THE DUKE OF NORFOLKThe noble Lord asked me about sports grounds and golf courses. A certain proportion of golf courses are used for grazing, and they are certainly useful. As regards the livestock industry, I can only give a rough figure which is that blood stock at studs has been reduced by over 33 per cent.
This situation which has been referred to is not unique because the average farmer, as my noble friend opposite knows, is very often turned out, and I do not think you can say that these people are treated in the same way. I would like to end by telling your Lordships that it is quite obvious that a certain amount of capital must be lost to these people, but it has never been the Government's policy to compensate industries in this war. They have one's sympathy, as do other people. But we look to them to show that increase in patriotism to which the noble Lord referred, and we feel that 712 we are not treating them in any way which is unduly unfair compared with the way in which we are treating other people.
§ LORD GAINFORDMy Lords, there is only one point I should like to make, having listened to this debate. I think that some credit is due to the noble Earl, who we know is a great expert in regard to horticulture. Those of us who have visited the Vincent Square Horticultural Exhibition have often seen him there, and we have admired the wonderful products on view. But I thought he had made some case for the very small holder who is cultivating material which cannot easily be replaced. I acknowledge that the noble Duke has said that it is not the intention of the Government to deprive the nation altogether of the material, and to make efforts so that stocks can be reproduced after the war. That, so far as it goes, is satisfactory. During the previous war I was responsible for compensation paid to people in France for damage done to their property; that is, for payment of compensation where the civil population suffered. It occurs to me that we made a great difference between what was an act of God, what was a fait de guerre and what was done by our troops or by cur Government in connexion with damage to any crops belonging to the civil population. And it occurs to me now, having regard to the existence of the large number of representatives of the Department which the noble Duke represents so well in this House, that hard cases might be considered if they arc brought to the attention of the Ministry. That was the only point I desired to make. It does seem to me that there may be very hard cases, and that they may be considered where they are justified and proved.
THE EARL OF DARNLEYMy Lords, I should like to thank those noble Lords who have spoken, but I should have liked more of your Lordships to speak. I would also thank the noble Duke for his answer. Much though I have appreciated what the noble Duke said, it seems to me that he has not answered my real case. It is very difficult for me to tell what your Lordships feel about this matter, because so few noble Lords have spoken; but what I have tried to do is to make out a case for the uniqueness of the treatment of which I have complained. We all know that everybody has to suffer in these days, but 713 it seems to me that this one section of the community has been singled out for treatment which is unique—namely, the destruction of capital without compensation. I do not think that the noble Duke was able to deny that that is the case. He has said that the destruction has been gradual, but what difference does that make? If you have to lose your capital, does it make any difference whether you lose it in two years or two months? It comes to the same thing in the end.
The noble Duke spoke about the flower trade as a pleasure trade and a luxury. It may be an unnecessary trade in the strictest sense, but I maintain that it does give very great pleasure, and the fact that it does give pleasure has not been taken into consideration. He also mentioned that the price of cut flowers has increased enormously, and this is true; but the extra money goes in Excess Profits Tax, so that it does not really matter at what price the flowers are sold. The noble Duke said that chickens and pigs were in the same position. I do not want to anticipate what will be said on the Motion standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Faringdon, but I do not think that there has been an Order to destroy chickens. The noble Duke said that 30 per cent. of blood stock had disappeared, but it has presumably disappeared only because the owners had not enough food to give it. I think I am right in saying that the owners of blood stock were not forced to slaughter it, but in the case of flowers people have been compelled to destroy their property. People are having to destroy all sorts of things in this war because they cannot maintain them, but this is the only case, I think, of forced destruction by Government order. I maintain, therefore, that this case is unique, and I do not think that the noble Duke has been able to refute that allegation. It is very difficult for me to gauge the feelings of your Lordships, because so few of you have spoken; but I think that I ought to put the matter to the test. If I am unsuccessful, I may be able to raise the matter again at an early date.
§ On Question, Motion negatived.