§ Captain WRIGHTasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture whether his attention has been called to the secretary of threshing machines available for threshing the last harvest owing to w[...] of engines and necessary drivers; a[...] whether he can take any steps by providing State-owned machines or assisting war agricultural committees to provide them, and, by arrangement with the War Office, the requisite skilled labour to remedy this 1442W scarcity, and so enable farmers to obtain seed for the next crop, bedding, and fodder?
§ Mr. ACLANDThe Board are aware that there is in some parts of the country some scarcity of labour for threshing, but the backwardness of the threshing season appears to be due more to the bad weather which we have had since the harvest than to lack of labour or machines. With regard to labour, it may not be generally known amongst farmers—and I am grateful to my hon. and gallant Friend for this opportunity of publishing it more widely—that the War Office are prepared to release soldiers for threshing, and that in several parts of the country, notably in Norfolk, teams of soldiers are working very satisfactorily at this job. As to the provision of State-owned threshing machines, the State cannot obtain the machines at the present time any more easily than they can be obtained by private owners who need them.