P.C.; M.P. (L.) North-West Cornwall; Financial Secretary, War Office,
1908-10; Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 1911-15;
Financial Secretary to Treasury, Feb.-June, 1915; Secretary to the Board
of Agriculture, 1915-16; a Forestry Commissioner. Chairman of the
Agricultural Organisation Society.
Mr. Acland said:--I begin by laying down in a didactic form five points
which one would like to see firmly established in our rural life: (i)
intensive production; (ii) plenty of employment at good wages; (iii)
easy access to land, and a good chance of rising upon the land; (iv)
real independence in rural life; (v) co-operative association for many
purposes.
Intensive production is most important. It is so easy to say the farmer
_can_ get more out of the land, and the farmer _should_ get more out of
the land, that we are tempted to continue and say that the farmer _must
be made_ to get more out of the land. But it isn't so easy. It has been
tried and failed, and when any subject in our British political life has
been brought up to the boiling-point, and yet nothing effective has been
done, it is extremely difficult to bring it to the boil a second time.
It is worth while tracing out what has actually happened. The
Government's Agriculture Act of 1921 contained four great
principles:--(i) that we must have more food produced in this country
(_a_) as an insurance against risk of war, (_b_) so as to meet our
post-war conditions as a debtor nation by importing less of our food
supplies; (ii) that as the most productive farming is arable farming,
and as by maintaining a proper proportion of arable we can on emergency
make ourselves independent for our food supplies for an indefinite time,
farmers should be guaranteed against loss on their arable rotations;
(iii) that if farmers are to be required to produce more they must have
clear legal rights to farm their land in the most productive way, a
greater compensation for disturbance; (iv) that as the first three
principles give security to the nation and to the farmer, it is
desirable also to give security to the worker by permanently continuing
the war-time system of Agricultural Wages Boards.
These principles were duly embodied in the Bill as it left the House of
Commons:--
(i) The Ministry of Agriculture, acting through the County Agricultural
Committees, was given powers to insist on a certain standard of arable
cultivation, as well as in minor matters, such as control of weeds and
of rabbits;
(ii) The difference between the ascertained market price and the
estimated cost of production on his wheat and oat acreage was guaranteed
to the farmer, the guarantee not to be altered except after four years'
notice;
(iii) The landlord had to forfeit a year's rent if a tenant was
disturbed except for bad farming, or four years' rent if the disturbance
was capricious;
(iv) The existing Wages Board system was continued.