§ 2.35 p.m.
EARL ST. ALDWYNMy Lords, with the permission of the House, I should like to make a personal statement on behalf of my noble friend Lorld Waldegrave, who very much regrets not being in his place to-day but he has a longstanding engagement with the farmers of three counties in Wales which he was unable to put off. If I may, I will use his own words, which are as follows:
"My Lords, I should like to make a correction to the reply I made to the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, in the debate on Monday. When dealing with the certification of lambs, I am reported in column 894 of the OFFICIAL REPORT of the 11th of April as saying:
'The lambs had been certified and the farmer got the subsidy and then said, "I think the price is going up"; he retained the lambs for a time and then sold to a butcher later on'."I omitted the vital words, 'the buyer'. For the man who legitimately retained the lambs was, of course, the buyer and not the farmer who had presented them for certification. The words I should have used were:'The lambs had been certified and the farmer got the subsidy and then the buyer said, "I think the price is going up"; he retained the lambs for a time and then sold to a butcher later on'.I should like, if I might, at the same time to correct one other inaccuracy in the Report in the same column, when my noble friend said:The sheep was presented later on, because the man took a gamble that the market was going to rise.It should read:The sheep were resold later on, because the man took a gamble that the market was going to rise.
§ VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGHMy Lords, I am obliged to the noble Earl. The noble Earl, Lord Waldegrave, has obviously taken the right course in reporting this at the earliest possible moment, even though he could not be here. I had looked up the first passage already, and I must say that without the inclusion of the words which were omitted, either in the speech or the Report, I do not know which, the thing does not make sense. We fully understand now what was meant. I am glad it has been corrected, because the general public might also have gone on completely misunderstanding it.