31 MARCH 1917, Page 2

The only new recommendation of importance is that the coin.

pulsion which was broadly hinted at in the Minority Report should be made real. The Committee advise that panels of assessors should be formed with power to supersede owners of badly farmed land. Altogether, the Report is a remarkable testimony to the feat of the authors of the earlier Report in casting their minds forward. The Committee state that they have no wish to increase the profits of farmers, but only to make it possible for them to plough more land. Unless the farmers are secured against the wheat prices of 1894-95 they will not do this. " Bad farming," the Committee say, " is a danger to the State, and the waste cf

good land on game or games is inconsistent with patriotism?' We agree. Once admit that as a working maxim and everything else follows for those who desire national security even though we may have to pay for it. We are glad that the Committee do not advise any maximum prices. Minimum prices are a necessary incentive. Maximum prices are in some degree or other the reverse. The whole point is that the farmer must be able to plough the land without it being possible to say of him,lin Scott's words, that he " fears while he sows he has sow'd it in vain."