" A BETTER TIME FOR FARMING."
[To TIM EDITOR or TED " SPZCZATOR.") SIR,—Does the above heading really form a correct deduction from the perusal of the Agriculture Bill? To decide this let us consider the situation. Free imports of food stuffs, produced with ease from virgin land, brought down prices, and almost ruined the farmers. Rents had to come down, until on an aver- age the farmer did not pay more than a rent on the buildings and improvements. Things gradually improved by rising prices due to economic conditions in the new countries, and then came the war and soaring prices. Farming became prosperous, and the rents usually were not increased. Then came the crushing taxation on the landlords who have had to sell off. Farmers have the money and numbers want better farms, so there has been a rush to buy, and prices have gone up accord- ing to the natural law of supply and demand. A considerable section of farmers wish to get their farms on the capitalized value of the old reduced rent, or fixity of tenure, which comes to the same thing. It is simply an instance of extremes meet- ing; it is the natural instinctive ultra Conservatism which goes with land, combined with the selfish disregard of others, which is the main feature of the so-called Radicalism of the present time. There is a perfectly arguable case in favour of State ownership of land, but there is none for setting up the people who happen to be occupiers at the moment• into a sort of agricultural oligarchy, a special section of the community to be endowed, not at the expense of the State, but at that of a comparatively small and impecunious class. There are loud cries for security for the farmers' capital, but not a word for that of the landlord, which is much greater. The agitation is entirely on a- par with that which preceded the Peoples Budget, which attacked the people who were thought to profiteer, put them out of business, and like a boomerang came round and felled the people who require houses but objected to rents. The result will be the same; it will drive capital from the land, and then who will build the new farmhouses and the workers' cottages we require ?
The Bill is a further instalment of legislation interfering with free contract, not only so, without compensation it breaks existing contracts. It gives present occupiers .a misty kind of tenant right, which new agriculturists will have to boy when they take a farm; with a right of from one to four years' purchase of the rent it is not expected that a man will leave voluntarily. Even bad farmers will hang on and just do the minimum to keep out of the clutches of the experts—till they get their price. Farm rents are to be raised and lowered by County Agricultural Committees. Could any one conceive a plan more likely to produce corruption of the worst kind? Some of us have strong views as to the aotings of County Agricultural Committees during the war, but for obvious reasons cannot discuss these in public. So far this is all some- thing taken from the impoverished landlord and given to the prosperous farmer. Then there is the cereal question. The State is guaranteeing a price of wheat and oats for four years, which according to all likelihood will be less than the world market one. This is not much of a gift or inducement to grow
cereals. These are the advantages which the farmer gets. What does he give the State in return? He gives up his freedom and becomes a State serf. No freedom of cropping—he is to farm according to the orders of a Minister, under penalty of crush- ing fines. He has to pay his men wages fixed by officials, who also fix the hours of work.
There is to he no freedom of contract or trade left; everything is to be under the heel of parasitic officials. The very worst landlords are amenable to public opinion, and there is the arbitrament of the Courts, but who can protect the farmer against the official? He may think that the landlord drove him with a whip, but the official will chastise him with scorpions. This may appear overdrawn, and it will be said that the Ministers will know something of farming and will not do foolish things; but we have got to judge the future official by those of the past. During the war he was largely under the heel of the theorists, and there were countless orders to grow cereals on land unfit for the purpose, which instead of increasing our food supply, actually reduced it, and especially brought about a milk famine. Well-intentioned people who have not the practical experience of work and wages and making ends meet in agriculture talk freely about intensive culture and heavy cropping combined with milk pro- duction, but their enthusiasm would cool rapidly were they to put their theories into practice.
The only thing to do with the Bill is to scrap it, and to remember that bureaucracy when it becomes intensified leads to revolution in the end. The action now open to all those really interested in the land isle. remember that King Charles lost his head by imposing war measures in time of peace, and to warn their member that although they would endure much when there was war, the high-handed bureaucratic control which in every direction the Government is endeavouring to impose on an unwilling country will if supported by him endanger his seat—a British and constitutional care better and more effective than all sorts of terrorism and agitation. Let us take warning from the history of Solomon and Rehoboam, upon the latter of whom the Premier appears to mould his policy.—I am, Sir, H. B. Colistes.
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