§ Viscount SANDONasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is satisfied that the £36,000 spent. by the Ministry of Agriculture for crop reporters. is an absolutely indispensable expenditure 59W at a time when expenses on so many desirable objects have had to be abolished or curtailed?
§ Major BOYD-CARPENTERThe primary responsibility for recommending this expenditure to the Treasury rests with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Agriculture. I understand that in his opinion the agricultural statistics which are obtained through the medium of these crop reporters afford the only real measure of the dimensions of the industry, the changes in cultivation, the production of crops and the number of live stock from year to year, and that in the absence of these statistics the Government, the Members of this House, and the public would be deprived of a most valuable source of information. I am not aware of any grounds which would warrant my dissenting from this opinion. The question of agricultural statistics generally was brought by the Treasury before the Geddes Committee and was thoroughly investigated by them; and in their Report. they took no exception to the system of crop-reporting.