asked the Minister of Agriculture whether, in view of the reluctance of tenant farmers to go in for whole-hearted and large-scale improvements that the war demands, in order to secure the maximum output from the farms, he will introduce legislation to safeguard tenant farmers by giving them security of tenure, conditional upon their effective farming, such security of tenure being for the duration of the war and five years afterwards?

In my view the existing provisions of the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1923, in regard to compensation for improvements, for continuous adoption of a special standard or system of farming, and for disturbance are such that no tenant farmer need be deterred from farming his land in the most efficient manner. In these circumstances I am satisfied that there is no case for legislation on the lines indicated.