I beg to move "That the Clause be read a second time."

In accordance with my undertaking given on the Committee stage, I introduce this Clause. It covers the ground to which the Clause of the hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Denman) related, in a form which meets one or two criticisms then advanced. Everyone agrees that rabbits and vermin do great harm to agriculture, and the Board should possess the modest powers of destruction provided in these words.

Has the right hon. Gentleman satisfied himself, after consultation with his legal advisers, that this proposal does not lessen the advantages secured under the Ground Game Acts? I am anxious to be reassured that the right hon. Gentleman has taken advice in order to ensure that there will be no whittling down of those powers.

I can assure the hon. Member that this Clause will leave the present powers under that Act absolutely unimpaired.

This Clause is very much better than the one introduced by the hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Denman), but it is still bad because it is one of those little pin pricks which will annoy the farmers who are chiefly concerned with rabbits, and the landlord really has very little to do with them unless the land is in his own hands. The farmer attaches very considerable importance to the rabbits. It is not a very easy question to deal with. There are very few keepers, and however much you desire to keep the rabbits down it is very-difficult at the present moment. The only consolation I find is in the fact that this Clause will probably be like many others, a dead letter, and nobody will pay any attention to it. I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman has introduced it because if it is acted upon it will only annoy and discourage agriculturists. The farmer does not want strangers running all over his land killing his rabbits, and he is quite capable of looking after them himself when they find that they will be subjected to any person authorised by the Board of Agriculture coming on to their own land and on land in their own occupation and taking their rabbits, I think the result will be very disadvantageous and not at all likely to promote the desire of the farmer to carry out the wishes of Parliament.

I only rise to ask whether the point raised in two Amendments standing in the name of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Molton (Mr. G. Lambert), who is not here, namely, whether the word "occupier" ["damaged by reason of the failure of an occupier of land"], includes owner, is already met, and whether the Amendments, therefore, are unnecessary?

Has the right hon. Gentleman considered the desirability of making any arrangements for compensation for any damage that may result from the Clause? He proposes to give individuals the right to go on to other persons' land in order to kill rabbits. If they are going to do it properly and to dig the rabbits out of their holes, and if they kill trees they ought to pay compensation. I also think, if the Board of Agriculture take over the killing of the rabbits that they ought to pay compensation to the owners if they do not do it. There is no difficulty in September and October, when there are enough rabbits to pay and when it is an amusement and a pleasant occupation, but if you have a lot of young rabbits and you want to keep them down you must dig them out with ferrets in January, February, and March when there are not enough to pay and when it is uncomfortable, unpleasant, and hard work. If the Board of Agriculture take over the duty of killing them they ought to do it thoroughly, and, if they do not, they ought to pay compensation to the owner. I speak having some knowledge of a district where there are many rabbits and many young trees, and if it is not done properly during the winter the trees will all be killed in February and March. If the Board only employ men during the time when it pays they will have great difficulty in getting men at the time when it is really important that the work should be done. It is obviously too late to go into all this at this time and in this House, but the Bill has to go to another place, and if the Board are going to take over this duty they ought to pay compensation for any damage that is done by their agent, and they ought also to pay compensation to the owners of trees or crops if they do not carry out their duties. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will consider the matter so that in another place it may be properly dealt with.

I want to ask your ruling on a point of Order connected with this Clause, namely, whether the word "trees" comes within the scope and title of the Bill, which is "For encouraging the production of corn, and for purposes connected therewith (including provision as to agricultural wages and rents)."

If the hon. and gallant Member will look at the definition Clause, he will see that the expression "agricultural" includes orchards, osier land, woodlands, and all kinds of trees."

I also wanted to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether, if the Board make a profit, as they ought to do if they work this thing at all in a businesslike way, they mean to take that profit or to hand it over to the landlord or the occupier? I see no provision for handing it over.

I think this a most unfair thing to put upon the farmer at the present time. You have taken away his men. He is not able to employ people to keep the rabbits down quite as much as he would like, and he cannot get copper wire for wiring the rabbits. If you ask him to let people go on to his land to kill the rabbits for him, you will rub him up the wrong way entirely, and you will cause a great deal of mischief. I quite see what will happen. People will be sent on to land, gates will be left open, the stock will get out on to the road, and you will impose a great injustice on the farmer. I oppose the Clause.

Is this Clause intended to apply to moorlands and down-lands where there are no cereals growing in the locality at all?

Evidently, the Clause does not apply where there are no cereal crops, trees, or pasturage. Rabbits do not do much harm on downs. With regard to the farmer being damaged by this Clause, we hear from all sides of constant complaints by farmers that rabbits are so multiplying that they are a perfect pest. I do not think, therefore, that the farmer will receive this Clause in the spirit in which the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Carew) indicated.

Is it the complaint of the farmers?

Yes, it comes from the farmers. This Clause is not intended in any way to interfere with the farmers' enjoyment of ferreting which, as every-body knows, is great. It only applies where the Board of Agriculture are satisfied that damage is being done by reason of the failure of the occupier to sufficiently destroy the rabbits found upon the land in his occupation. Supposing there are any profits for this killing of the rabbits, it is intended that they should go towards the reduction of the expenses and the payment of the rabbit-catcher. If the occupier fails in his duty to keep down the rabbits, we do not propose to hand over to him whatever profits may result from the undertaking. The hon. Gentleman (Colonel Sir C. Seely) is quite right in thinking that the only way in which you can keep down rabbits is to trap them during the breeding season when they are of no commercial value. Therefore, the question about profits really does not arise. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Camborne (Mr. Acland) asked me certain questions about the Amendments of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Molton (Mr. G. Lambert). The occupier, whether he is owner or tenant, has the power to keep down the rabbits on his land, therefore the Clause is sufficient and is correct as it stands.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause read a second time.

I beg to move, in Subsection (l), to leave out the words "and take" ["kill and take the rabbits"].

As the Clause is drafted the Government trapper would kill and take the rabbits and the occupier would have to pay the cost of the transaction. I suggest that it would be a little unfair that the owner of the rabbits should have to pay the cost incurred in catching them and then should also have the rabbits taken away. I gather from what the President said that the intention is that if the rabbits are taken away and realise more than it cost to catch them, the balance will be returned to the occupier. Is that not so?

No; I did not mean that.

Then I must move my Amendment. It is manifestly unfair to charge the occupier with the expenses of catching the rabbits and then to take them away, thereby penalising him. I welcome the Clause because it is not proposed to act until the occupier has had an opportunity of killing the rabbits himself. If he is unable to do so through the absence of trappers, which is pretty general now owing to their being called up, then not until after notice the Government representative will catch the rabbits. But it is very hard that the occupier should have to pay the cost of the proceedings and lose the rabbits as well. I cannot think that that is the object of the right hon. Gentleman. In the public interest it is desirable that the rabbits should be reduced. They are a perfect nuisance, and the farmer ought to catch them. He will when he can. In cases where he has been unsuccessful, in the interests of the public, it is the duty of the State to step in and exterminate the pest, so far as it can be done; but they ought not to compel the occupier to pay the cost of catching the rabbits and take away the rabbits as well. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will never participate in that sort of thing, which looks a little like profiteering, because it means first catching and then expropriating the rabbits, which will probably produce three times the cost of catching them.

I beg to second the Amendment. I am not quite sure that the President means exactly what the hon. Member for Tavistock (Sir J. Spear) understood him to mean. I believe the meaning of the President is that the rabbits should be sold and that the price of the rabbits should be deducted from the cost of catching them. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will tell me if I am right. I would then suggest to him that he should make the matter perfectly clear. I would rather that the profit went to the farmer, as it ought to; but if the right hon. Gentleman is not prepared to provide that, would he insert, after the words "a civil debt," the word "net," instead of the word "any," so making it "net expenses" instead of "any expenses"?

The Clause as it stands certainly would enable the Board of Agriculture to charge all the expenses and take all the rabbits, because it says,

"the Board may recover from the occupier summarily as a civil debt any expenses."

If a man is sent down and incurs an expenditure of £5 and catches rabbits which are sold for £6, then the £5 can be recovered under this Clause as a civil debt, while nothing is said about the proceeds of the sale of the rabbits. Therefore, what the hon. Member for Tavistock (Sir J. Spear) fears can be carried out. I am quite certain that the President of the Board of Agriculture, having said that he does not intend that, will not do it. But the matter will not always be in the hands of the present President, and we must make the Bill read so that it will provide that all future Presidents are not to charge the whole of the expenses to the occupier and take the result of the operations as well. Would not the simplest way be to leave out the word "expenses" and insert the word "loss," making the Sub-section read "net loss incurred by the Board"?

Net cost.

If we say "net cost," that might lead to litigation. The Board will know whether or not they make a loss. "Net cost" might mean all sorts of things, even the forms filled up by the Board of Agriculture in sending a man down. Therefore the words "net loss" would be better.

I would suggest that not only ought not the Board to recover any loss, but that any profit should be handed over. They might make a profit one month and a loss the next. If they send down in October they will make a large profit on catching rabbits, but if they send down in March they will make a loss, put the rabbits in their pocket and charge the occupier with the loss. That would be the position under the proposal made by the right hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury). The simplest plan would be that if they kill the rabbits they should hand them over to the occupier; then if they charge him the cost of the transaction it would be an inducement to him not to keep too many rabbits. As a matter of fact, at the present time everybody would be glad to pay the cost of killing rabbits if it were properly done.

In proposing this Clause I stated that the profits on the taking would be set off against the expenses of catching; therefore some of the arguments might have been eliminated.

It is not in the Clause.

I am quite satisfied to accept words which will make the Sub-section read

"may recover from the occupier summarily as a civil debt the net cost incurred by the Board in connection with the action so taken."

In view of that promise I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment made: In Sub-section (1) leave out the words "any expenses" ["a civil debt any expenses"], and insert instead thereof the words "the net cost." —[ Mr. Prothero. ]

Proposed Clause, as amended, added to the Bill.

CLAUSE 1.—(Payments to Growers where Average Price of Wheat or Oats is Less than Minimum.)

If the average price for the wheat or oats of any year for which a minimum price is fixed under this Act, as ascertained for the purpose of this Part of this Act, is less than the minimum price as fixed by this Act, the occupier of any land on which wheat or oats have been produced in that year shall be entitled to be paid by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries in respect of each acre on which he proves to the satisfaction of the Board that wheat or oats have been so produced, a sum equal in the case of wheat to four times, and in the case of oats to five times, the difference between the average price and the minimum price per quarter:

Provided that—

( a ) if it appears to the Board in respect of any land on which wheat or oats have been produced that the wheat or oats were intermixed with any other crop, the amount payable in respect of that land shall be adjusted accordingly in such manner as the Board think proper, or

( b ) if it appears to the Board that any such land has been negligently cultivated, the Board may either withhold altogether the payments to which the occupier would otherwise have been entitled or may diminish the amount of those payments to such extent as the Board think proper to meet the circumstances of the case.

I beg to move, to leave out Clause 1.

I wonder if you, Sir, have diagnosed the true inwardness of this Clause, or have any real conception as to the extent to which the Treasury, and through it the taxpayers, may be committed under its provisions. I will endeavour to enlighten you. I shall submit figures which may be found in the OFFICIAL REPORT of 18th July, 30th July, and 1st August, which were furnished to me by the Board of Agriculture in reply to certain unstarred questions. I was informed on 18th July that the growers of wheat and oats realised, when their crops were sold— they sold 85 per cent. of their wheat and 20 per cent. of their oats from 1909 to 1914—in round numbers £64,500,000 for their wheat and £24,500,000 for their oats, or £89,000,000 altogether. This Clause guarantees that from 1917 to 1922 the same growers, on a like acreage, shall receive for their wheat £98,000,000 and for their oats £35,000,000, or altogether £133,000,000—that is to say, in the case of wheat £33,500,000 and in the case of oats £10,500,000, or £44,000,000 altogether more than they realised on their crops from 1909 to 1914. So that if we pass this Clause we are so legislating that our food, which cost us £89,000,000 from 1909 to 1914, shall and must cost us £133,000,000 from 1917 to 1922, whether the War continues or not. I want to establish this point, that should producers not realise in the open market these colossal sums the taxpayer will be called upon to make up the difference up to that £44,000,000; that is to say, if—and I admit it is a very big if—the average prices were exactly the same from 1917 to 1922 as they were from 1909 to 1914 the taxpayer will be called upon to make good to these favoured classes £44,000,000, although they will not have produced one solitary extra bushel either of wheat or of oats.

But that is not the whole story. Clause 1 goes much farther than that, for the growers of 1909 to 1914 consumed upon their premises, feeding bullocks and so forth, 15 per cent. of the wheat and 80 per cent. of the oats. I was informed on 1st August that the market value at that time was £11,500,000 for the wheat and £94,000,000 for the oats, or £105,500,000 altogether. This Clause guarantees that they shall receive value upon that, for the years 1917 to 1922, for their wheat £17,250,000, and for their oats £140,750,000, that is, for both of them £158,000,000. That is to say that in the case of the 15 per cent. of wheat £5,750,000, and in the case of the 80 per cent. of oats £46,750,000, or for both £52,500,000, more than they were valued at for 1909 to 1914. I think I shall startle you, not to say stagger you, when I reveal to you, as it was revealed to me in an answer from the Board of Agriculture on 30th July, that these payments for differences in values are to be made to these growers whether the crops are sold or consumed on the farm. Therefore, if—it is the same if as before —the average prices are exactly the same from 1917 to 1922 as they were from 1909 to 1914, the taxpayers will be called upon to make a present of £52,500,000 to the growers for corn which they have consumed on their own farms, and upon which they have fed their horses, cows, bullocks, sheep, pigs, and poultry, and that has to be added to the war profits which they have already pocketed from the stock that they have sold in the meantime. Surely madness lies that way. This Clause provides contingent liabilities—I will not put it higher than that— upon the taxpayers to the tune of £44,000,000 to the growers and £52,500,000 to the stock raisers, or £96,500,000 altogether, and you will not have a solitary bushel of corn extra to show for it. The probability is that we shall have less because these payments are not to be made upon the numbers of quarters which are produced but upon the acreage.

4.0 P.M.

Of course, I shall be told that the taxpayers will have nothing to find because the average prices are certain to rule higher than these minimum prices in Clause 2 for the whole of the six years from 1917 to 1922. Who knows? Who can tell? To say the least, we are being invited to gamble in the average prices of the food of the people for six years to come. That is for the duration of the War, and, please God, for many months, it may be years, afterwards. As taxpayers' representatives and trustees we are giving our names as guarantors for an amount which no man can definitely forecast, but which is absolutely certain to turn out to be a very substantial sum. For my own part, if, instead of turning out not £96,500,000, it should not exceed £6,500,000, it would not modify by one iota my wholehearted and irreconcilable opposition to Clause 1. I frankly confess that I am altogether on the side of the consumer. I should be amused, if it were not too serious for a smiling matter, at the way in which hon. Members seems to think that their constituents will be content to agree to pay 1d., 2d., or 3d. more for the 4 lb. loaf for six years to come than they were under the necessity of paying three years ago. I grant that they are more or less reconciled at the present moment because employment is good and wages are high, but when the War is over, they will not be. The War will not go on for ever. Not even the egregious Kaiser, with the active operation of the Evil One and all his fallen angels, can carry on until the end of time. The mills of God grind slowly, but they do grind. profits will disappear, and pre-war profits will probably be diminished. In these circumstances the consumers will be in the mood to call down a curse upon any House of Commons which bolsters up the cost of their daily bread or interferes with the consumers obtaining their 4 lb. loaf at the bedrock world's price.

I have the honour to represent a constituency which is half agricultural and half industrial, and I oppose this Clause in the interests of both halves, because any levy that is made in this Clause will be levied upon the whole constituency. The agricultural portion are engaged in producing milk, beef, mutton, wool, bacon, and eggs. They grow neither wheat nor oats, but they consume both. That was literally so before the War. Perhaps to prove that statement that the Skipton Division is not, at any rate was not, a corn-growing district, perhaps I may venture to quote from the affectionate memoir of Lord Ribblesdale in the "Letters and Recollections" of his gallant son, Charles Lister. Lord Ribblesdale relates that They are opposed to any attempt by Parliament to keep up as long as possible the cost of living at its present high level.

I submit that this Clause puts back the clock of political progress 229 years. History tells us that bounties were first granted on corn in 1688, and that after a varied career, and after undergoing various vicissitudes they were abolished during the Napoleonic Wars in 1814. It will be a strange and tragic reversal of history if the present Continental conflagration is to lead to their resurrection in 1917. Clause 1 is the most unstates-manlike and most reactionary legislation that has been introduced by a responsible Government since Peel repealed the execrated Corn Laws. This proposal is calculated to make John Bright and Richard Cobden turn in their graves. If Clause 1 becomes law, which God forbid, although I am no prophet, neither am I a prophet's son, I venture to prophesy that one of the first fruits after peace is established will be the formation of an Anti-Corn Law League, after the pattern of that formed on 19th December, 1838. Clause 1 constitutes a Corn Law after the type which was abandoned in 1814. There must be no mistake about it that every vote given for Clause 1 is a vote cast for the revival of the Corn Laws and for that vote every hon. Member will be held to strict account at the bar of public opinion.

I beg to second the Amendment, in order to give the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite, who has shown his appreciation of the subject, an opportunity of expressing himself.

This Clause is essential to the Bill. It could not be called a Corn Production Bill without the Clause, and, of course, we should not proceed with the Bill if it were not carried. The Committee was fully in possession of the facts, figures, arguments and even prophecies of the hon. Member when they passed this Clause, and it now stands part of the Bill at this stage. Nothing that the hon. Member has said is new. No addition has been made of any argument which was not heard before. Therefore, I do not propose to accept the Amendment.

I do not propose to go over again points which were raised or not raised in the Committee stage. I think my hon. Friend had his Amendment down in the Committee stage, but did not move it then. I think it is right to say from this side of the House that some of us cannot agree with the arguments that my hon. Friend attempted to use, which tended to show that this Bill would make corn dear for the consumer. I do not think it is really fair to use the words "Corn Laws" in the old sense as laws which would tend to put a burden upon people's corn, or make it in any sort of way more difficult for the poorer people of this country to live. This Clause is carefully devised so that it cannot possibly have any such effect. The only way that money will come to be paid is by the general taxpayer in paying these guarantees, and there is no possibility of the consumer having to pay one farthing more for his loaf. I think that ought to be recognised in justice to the Bill. I want to say a few words about the value there may be in the guarantee, even though it may not, and very likely will not, operate. I heard an instance of that the other day which was rather interesting, in the action taken by a young and not-well-off landowner, in guaranteeing that War Savings Certificates would be paid. He had asked those who lived in his village to take up War Savings Certificates, but he found that people were not at all willing to do so, because they did not trust the present Prime Minister or any member of the Government, and they could not trust to £l being paid for every 15s. 6d. certificate. Although this young landlord-owner could not afford the money, he gave a written guarantee to all the labourers, farmers, and other village people that £l would be paid for every 15s. 6d. certificate taken out, and as a result the certificates were bought like hot cakes. That is an example of a guarantee being useful, though there is no chance of it being actually called upon.

I am bound to say, walking as I did yesterday and the day before, through the Cotswolds, I think that the guarantee under this Bill has already produced some effect, even though I think it very likely that it will not come into operation, because I saw a great deal more ploughing going on than I expected to see, or than I think one would have seen if this Bill had not been introduced. The only point that I do want to make with regard to this Clause is this: I think that it is not right to go all over again the ground covered in Committee, but a very large change has been made in this Clause in Committee, which I think is right that the House should realise. In the Bill as introduced by my right hon. Friend it was proposed to give a guarantee only on corn sold. At any rate, no guarantee was to be given except on corn which was brought forward for human consumption. The area of the Clause has been enormously widened by the change of giving the guarantee on all corn produced—whether on an acreage basis or on a quarter age basis it does not matter. But I would ask those who will, I fear, later on be trying to whittle down some of the other parts of the Bill—for instance, Part IV.—to realise that this Clause has been made very much broader, and, from the point of view of those who object to it, very much worse by the broadening to which it has been subjected in Committee. I think that from that point of view we owe something to my hon. Friend for bringing forward his Amendment, because at any rate it shows how very much greater the guarantee of the State might have to be if it were called upon to pay under the new form of the Bill as altered in Committee than under the original form in which the right hon. Gentleman introduced it, but I believe that on the whole the different parts of the Bill do link together, and I quite agree with my right hon. Friend in saying that this is an essential part of the Bill, and as we fought all these questions over in Committee I, at any rate, do not intend to fight them over again.

I congratulate the Mover of the Amendment upon the very important statement which he has made. He has drawn attention to the fact that this Clause imposes upon the country a liability running to anything up to £100,000,000, and for that great liability there is no security that one single quarter of corn more will be produced. That is a most unbusinesslike arrangement. If we are to pay these immense sums to produce more corn, in a time of a great war like this, it ought to be done in a much more businesslike way. If the expenditure of these great sums was on corn produced in addition to the corn produced before the War, there would be a great deal more to be said for this Clause. While the discussion on the Bill was in progress I had a conversation with a progressive farmer, a man who is growing from 6 to 7 quarters of wheat and 10 of oats to the acre, and he said, "I do not think that there is anything in your Bill. It is just an endowment for unprogressive farmers. They will not have to exert themselves more than they did before. Therefore, I attach no value whatever to this system of State help of agriculture in this country." I would ask the President of the Board of Agriculture to say what has been the effect of the change that has been made since this Clause was added to the Bill? Since then I understand that the commandeered price of wheat has been fixed at 72s. If that is so it is clear that this Clause of the Bill is quite inoperative for this year, for the price of wheat which is commandeered is to be 12s. more than the 60s. guaranteed in the Bill. That is to say, the commandeered price fixed by the Food Controller is 20 per cent. higher than the guaranteed price fixed in the Bill.

That has nothing to do with the Bill.

It renders the Clause inoperative. I should have thought that that was a very important thing. If this Clause is not to operate this year, the most critical year of the War, when it is said we need food more than in any other time, and the Bill is supposed to be designed for that purpose, that makes the Bill absolutely of no value, because the commandeered prices are very much higher. I would like to know how these commandeered prices have been fixed at such figures as 72s., when we are proposing in this Bill to guarantee a minimum price of 60s., and I should also like to know what is going to be the effect of the operation of these very high prices on the operation of this Clause? I desire to associate myself with the Motion of the hon. Member, and if he goes to a Division I shall support him in the Division Lobby.

As the representative of a very poor industrial Constituency I am wondering what my Constituents will say when, after the War, it becomes necessary to pay money out of the public treasury to an industry which, during the War, has made enormous profits. When the men come back from the War and try to find their places in industry, and when the reorganisation of industry, and the different problems involved in it, still leave many persons unemployed, and when the tendency to reduce wages comes into operation, a tendency which we have never yet been able to overcome, and food prices remain at a high figure, and these Constituents of mine, looking into all the public affairs which will be discussed in the newspapers, realise that they themselves are being taxed in order that the agricultural industry, as it is called, should receive more money from the producer than it would otherwise receive, what will they say about it? One of the effects of this Bill has already made itself manifest. Sir Howard Frank the other day said that agricultural land was selling better to-day than at any period during the last twenty-five years, and during the present month his firm had sold in value £1,212,000, at prices varying from £15 an acre in Wales to £80 in England, and that the rents now paid were much below proper rental value of the land in most districts. I have here a number of newspaper cuttings showing that land is being sold at fifty years' and over fifty years' purchase. In other words, the first effect of this guarantee by the Government of artificial prices for the purchase of agricultural produce is to send up the prices of land and encourage speculation in land. Cases have already come to my notice of land which has changed hands at a profit two or three times during the few months.

That is all against the interests of the public, of the consumer, and more particularly of the poor consumer in the industrial districts. They will feel that they themselves are being taxed and penalised in order that other persons better situated than themselves shall have their already large profits still further increased, and, as a representative of a poor district in London, I protest against this further endowment, not necessarily of farmers but of landowners, and this attempt to increase the price of land, which means charging excessive prices not only in agriculture but for building and other purposes, adding thereby very largely to the social and industrial difficulties which face us to-day. I remember in Morley's "Life of Gladstone" a conversation recorded in which Mr. Gladstone pointed out that the great baronial castles and great houses like Eaton in different parts of the country were built after the Napoleonic Wars out of the huge profits which were made possible by the huge prices of agricultural produce. I have not the least doubt that the maintenance of these high prices for a number of years to come will have a tendency to make possible the building of more mansions like these. With the prospect before us of industrial trouble and difficulty arising out of the return of the men from the War and their re-entry into the industrial life of the country, I am appalled at the attempt at such a time as this to endow the most favoured and the most privileged class in our midst, and while I do not wish to indulge in prophecy, I think that nothing could be done more effectively to sow the seeds of revolution in the minds of the working classes of the country, and I believe that when, as a result of the release of shipping for the world's produce, high agricultural prices do come down, and this Act actually does come into operation as a public measure, you will have an organisation for the repeal of this Act, and that that organisation will have behind it a sense of injustice and wrong inflicted by this Act.

Both my hon. Friends who spoke last have felt a difficulty under which I labour very strongly. We see that it is really useless to make speeches at this stage. We can get nothing more out of my right hon. Friend. The Clause in all its nakedness stands there. We have done what we could quite unavailingly on the earlier stages. Therefore there is much to be said against continuing the Debate, and I will not do so at any length. On the Second Reading I proposed the rejection of the Bill. We were in a great minority. At a later stage we got a good Division against the Bill. On the whole I do not think that we have made it seriously any better. I believe that the arguments of my hon. Friend, which have been stated so picturesquely and eloquently, are quite true, and I think that we shall yet regret very much the passing of this Bill. I would like to call attention in the fewest words possible to the three great faults which still disfigure the Bill. My right hon. Friend said that the object of the Bill was to produce more corn. Why have they not put that into the Bill? There is in the Bill no provision for an excess production of corn. It would have been quite easy to have one. The payment, whatever it is, is not based on any excess production. As the Bill stands if there was a much smaller production, the guarantee would still have to be paid. In that respect you are not making the Bill one for increased production, and the money that is left in would be a mere bribe to a class. And the worst of it is that we have experience to go on. We knew how we could produce corn. The only means by which corn could have been produced have not been taken. We have been struggling since the second year of the War with the consumption and production of wheat, and production has been rather diminished. We had very good production in the first year of the War, and that was realised by leaving the men on the farm to plough, and sow, and produce corn. That was not done in 1916, when there was a great falling off, nor was it done in 1917.

We had this alternative method of leaving the men on the land, as the right hon. Gentleman knew quite well, but he had to struggle in January and February with the War Department for men, because he knew quite well that if he did not get the men he would not get the crops, and that if he did get the men he would get the crops without this system of bribery. The right hon. Gentleman had another experience—that of Ireland —where the Government simply said: "Produce more corn, 10 per cent., and, if you cannot, give the reasons for it." He succeeded in getting more than 10 per cent., and in this year there are three-quarters of a million more acres producing corn under the simple method of the Government saying, "There is a national crisis, and we wish you to produce much more corn." They did it, and they did it under a law the spirit of which they approved, and they, at any rate, shamed Great Britain. Why did not the Government follow the Irish precedent by going round the counties of England and saying that more corn was needed where more could be grown. I understand there can be no more corn grown in Norfolk, and there is no reason for giving them a money bribe; but in other counties, about which the Board of Agriculture know, they could have got 5 per cent. more here, and 10 per cent. or 20 per cent. more there, by simply issuing, under the Defence of the Realm Act, an Order that more corn was needed, and they would not have found the people of Great Britain less patriotic and less responsive to the appeal than were the people in Ireland. These are the faults of the Bill which stand out. It does not increase production; it departs from methods by which alone production can be increased, and adopts a system which my hon. Friend has already described. We are not very fortunate in our leaders, who now appear to be split up on everything. We have on the bench one of our leaders to-day, the right hon. Member for Camborne, who has made a very embarrassing speech for some of us, though on other stages of the Bill he spoke in a different sense. It almost breaks our hearts. It is all very well for my right hon. Friend to explain about the guarantee that it will not really be a burden on the country, but it must be recollected that he was one of the Committee which sat in connection with the Bill and made recommendations in regard to it. He was in the swim, and he was actually one of those who produced this bad measure. To my mind the Bill has not been improved at all, and if my hon. Friend goes to a Division I will support him.

I desire to associate myself with the criticisms which have been passed upon this Clause, which stands in the forefront of the Bill, which is the Money Clause, and which is the Clause which guarantees prices. It is the backbone of the Bill we are now asked to pass. It was recognised and foreshadowed that the guarantee of prices would be the guarantee of rents, and that it would send up the rents and incidentally the price of land, and the right hon. Gentleman, on that matter, did call attention to the fact that at the close of the Napoleonic Wars the high prices of food had sent up rents of lands enormously, and said that he might have in the Bill to take some steps against that happening. As a matter of fact, steps of that kind are singularly ineffective, because we have already had instances that the rents of agricultural land, at least for the new tenants, has in fact been raised throughout the country, and prices have been rising, as has been shown in the instances quoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Haggerston (Mr. Chancellor). All economists recognise that rents are determined by prices, and if prices are sent up or guaranteed, rents are sent up or guaranteed, and it is absolutely impossible to prevent that happening, as the present rise of freights shows, when there is a serious diminution in available tonnage. The Bill will secure greater rents and greater prices for agricultural land, and the proposals in Clause 8 are utterly insufficient to deal in a substantial degree with that point. I am not, of course, at liberty to discuss Clause 8, but I hope there may be some mention of that later.

What I do want to point out is that the position in which we are is this: The farmers are to be guaranteed minimum, prices, which, of course, secures the landlords in their position and advantages. If Nature is not bountiful, if we had no bountiful harvests here and elsewhere, the guarantee will not be called upon for the prices will be high because of scarcity; but if Nature is bountiful here and in other countries and prices fall, then the guarantee will be called up; and, just because Nature has been more bountiful the taxpayers in this country will be called upon to give compensation to the landed interest. The Clause has not even the poor excuse that it will ensure any increase in the growth of corn in this country. There is security for prices, but there is absolutely no security that the produce will be increased. An Amendment was moved from these benches to the effect that the guarantee should be limited to those cases where there was an increase in the produce, but that Amendment was resisted, and the position taken up by the Government was that these prices should be guaranteed to all producers whether they produced more, whether they produced the same, or whether, even, they produced less. My hon. Friend who moved this Amendment told the House that the growers would receive the same, even, though they produced no more than they did in pre-war years. But one can go even further than that and say that the growers are guaranteed these minimum prices at the expense of the taxpayer, even though they reduce the area they have under corn. Even if they were to reduce the area they would still be entitled to this bonus or bounty or bribe or whatever you like to call it upon the area under cultivation. There is not even security that the land will be satisfactorily cultivated to the approval of the Board of Agriculture. I know there is something about it in the Clause, but there is no substantial guarantees as to that. The Government were not prepared to go further than to say that if the land were not cultivated under corn, if the Board of Agriculture were satisfied that the land was not satisfactorily cultivated they would cut down the amount that was to be given by way of guarantee. That does not go nearly far enough because if the attention of the Board is not directed to what is being done on the land, then the full guarantee may be paid even though cultivation is not satisfactory.

It seems to me that on this Clause the Government ought to have put it the other way, and ought to have made it a condition of this bounty, bad as the system is, that it should not be given in respect of any land unless it were affirmatively proved to the satisfaction of the Board of Agriculture that the land was, in fact, being properly cultivated. There is no guarantee of any increased produce; there is, to my mind, almost a certainty, not in this year or perhaps next year, but in the later years of the guarantee, that it will involve a considerable amount of cost to the over pressed taxpayer, who will have to make up the amount. I say, further, that the very effect of this Bill will result in increasing the prices given for land, will strengthen the landed interests, and will make them cry out for a continuance of the guarantee with a view, if possible, to getting the guarantee after the five years have expired. Indeed, voices have already been heard to that effect from benches in this House, and we hear complaints that the farmers may be left in the lurch at the end of the five years. The proposals which the Government have made seem to have no regard to what really ought to be done, or to the present unsatisfactory system of working farms.

The fact is that in this country, amidst all manufacturing and industrial developments, the system of farming remains practically where it was many years ago. The great bulk of the land, in respect of which the guarantee is to be given for five years, is held on tenancies simply from year to year. That is not the best system for satisfactory production. I know that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who support the present system say that the landlords are very reasonable, that there is an understanding between the landlord and the tenant, and that the system works well. In so far as it works well, it only works well on a small scale. There is no business basis for the real commercial development of agriculture in a system like that, and until you have some proper business basis there is no chance of agriculture being developed on a large scale, or along commercial lines. It must be remembered, too, that farmers do not carry on the work in their ordinary business way. How many farmers, for instance, in an ordinary business way keep anything like accurate accounts of profit and loss? The mere fact that the great bulk of farmers in this country do not keep books at all is one of the reasons for assessing them to Income Tax under Schedule B instead of under Schedule D. The fundamental difficulty of this Clause is that it is a proposal to extend the production of corn growing, without any guarantee that it will be extended, by the process of guaranteeing high prices instead of by the proper process of trying to overhaul the whole of the conditions under which the land is worked. I would like to associate myself with the protest made by my hon. Friend against the attitude of those who, on these benches we have long been accustomed to regard as our leaders. My right hon. Friend has spoken—in a way in which our other leaders have spoken in regard to this question—with a very uncertain voice, and has said how infrequently they have been in the House. They have been still more infrequently in the Lobby. Hon. and right hon. Friends who are supporting this Bill recognise that so far as those with whom I am associated are concerned, we at least have taken up a firm, open, and straight attitude on this Bill.

We have done nothing in the way of obstruction, but we have tried by fair debate to get the whole question fully discussed. I do not know what is the opinion of those who speak against a proposal and then abstain from voting in the Division Lobby. There are two Lobbies in this House, and it seems to me that when hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who are leaders of others, and who are leaders of people throughout the country find themselves in a position where critical questions arise they ought not only to speak with a clear utterance in the House, but ought to go into whichever Lobby they think right with a clear "Yes" or "No." They have been losing ground in the House and outside. There are only two sovereign words in politics when an issue is raised, and those words are "Yes" and "No." Our leaders are apt to avoid saying "Yes" or "No," and they are apt to try to reconcile the two. I venture to hope that after this Bill has passed they will be able to take up a firmer attitude on other measures. What we are discussing now, however, is Clause 1 of this Bill, and my hon. Friend who moved its rejection has given sound reasons against it, as has been the case with other hon. Members as well. The leaders of the Liberal party also gave sound reasons against it when it was in Committee. What are they going to say on Report? We, whose attitude has always been clear, know what our views are on Report, and if my hon. Friend who has moved the rejection of this Clause goes into the Division Lobby, I for one shall go with him.

I am not going into the question as to whether the leaders of the Liberal party have been behaving well or badly, or of where they are at the present moment, but I think the hon. Gentleman will find that they are not in either Lobby when he goes into the Lobby on the Motion made by the hon. Gentleman the Member for the Skipton Division (Mr. Clough). I only rose because I think the speech of the hon. Member for Haggerston (Mr. Chancellor) ought not to go unchallenged. I understood that he made two statements, the first being that enormous profits were being made by the farmers. I think there has been a very great deal of exaggeration about the profits that have been made by farmers. They have made a good living during the last two or three years, and that is about all they have done. There is no foundation whatever for the belief that enormous profits have been made. In the milk business I think there are many farmers who have not done so well at all. Some, no doubt, have done fairly well, but those who made their contracts for various periods have on more than one occasion since the commencement of the War found that their profits have not been very great. It must be remembered that farmers do not put the whole of their land into wheat. In the majority of cases only one-fourth of the arable land is in wheat, and the arable land is not the whole of the farm. Moreover, the farmers do not always get the top price. The majority of farmers get what price they can, but in many cases, as, for instance, last year, they sold their wheat at 60s., though the price afterwards went up to somewhere about 90s., and I should doubt very much whether the average number of farmers get, on the whole, more than an average of 70s. for their wheat.

Hear, hear!

I think that is correct. There has been a great deal of foolish talk and exaggeration about the profits farmers have made. People never seem to remember the weather. Anyone Who is, unfortunately, farming, and who went down to his farm yesterday to look at the hay which is still out in many places, and who picked it up, will have found that whereas if he was producing a ton an acre and has 40 acres down he ought to have something which would realise over £200, he probably has something which will not realise more than £30 or £40. The rain of last week has turned it into a mass of decomposed stuff which will be of very little use. So much for the farmers. With regard to the landlords, the hon. Member said that under this Bill, and what was going on now, enormous houses would be erected as was done during the Napoleonic Wars. I was not living in the Napoleonic Wars, and I do not know what was done. Labour was cheaper then, and it was, of course, cheaper to build houses, but I am quite certain now that the great majority of landlords will not be able to erect a cottage out of the increased profits that they have made during the War, or out of anything that they are going to get under this Bill. I am a landowner myself, and I voted against the Second Reading of the Bill.

Does the right hon. Baronet deny the statement made by Sir Howard Frank?

I was coming to that now. The statement made by Sir Howard Frank—I think I read it myself—was, I gathered, that agricultural land was selling now at a higher price than it had done for twenty-five years. I should think that is quite true; but twenty-five years from now takes us back to 1892, and 1892 was about the time, within a year or two, that land had reached the lowest price.

No; earlier.

I beg pardon. That was a bad, wet year, something like this year, and it was the first year of the commencement of the agricultural depression, but prices did not go down before five years afterwards, and the majority of landlords held on and tried to do their best. In many cases where their farmers and tenants went bankrupt they themselves took the land over and farmed it as best they could, and bad prices did not come in until 1892. I know myself, because I realised a property somewhere about 1895 which fifty years before cost £90,800, and then realised £27,000. It was eventually acquired by an hon. Member opposite, whom I do not see in his place, and who probably belonged to the same political party as the hon. Member (Mr. Chancellor). He no doubt has done very well out of the purchase. I venture to say it is not fair to take the lowest price and point out that the land has gone up now. It was bound to do so, and nothing that has any intrinsic value and goes to a low price through adverse circumstances fails to come round eventually. I am sure the hon. Gentleman would not desire that land should be worth nothing or very little. The more things are worth in this country, the better for everyone. I remember my right hon. colleague the senior Member for the City (Mr. Balfour) some ten years ago saying that what we were suffering from in this country was not too many rich men, but too few rich men; and he was quite right. The more money and the better prices property fetches in this country, the better for the country. With regard to the fears of this Bill, I myself do not believe it is going to do any good at all, because you have to put against it the immense burdens that are put upon the farmer. I do not believe it would have done any good in any case, because I may point out to the hon. Gentleman that there is a reason, apart from the War, for the rise in the price of wheat. During the last ten years land has been going up in value, and there has been a much greater desire to take land. If you had a farm vacant you could probably get a higher rent for it before this Bill was enacted. That is because the population in America is overtaking the production of wheat, and because virgin lands cannot be so well cultivated and made to produce so much without manures. All these things tend to raise the price of wheat, and the produce of the farms, and to make the farms more valuable.