the condition of the labourers engaged upon the land. In order to give them security the Corn Production Act, whose provisions were renewed in the Agriculture Act, provided for the setting up of an agricultural wages board, empowered to fix minimum rates of wage for persons engaged in agricultural work, no such rate to be less than 255. a week for able-bodied men. The wages board con- sisted of an equal number of representatives of employers and workmen, together with certain appointed members nominated by the Board (Ministry) of Agriculture. District wages committees were set up for administration of the Act within their areas, and these committees proposed local rates of wage and incidental regulations regarding their area for the confirmation of the central wages board. As the setting up of the wages board coincided with a time of rapidly advancing wages in all industries the minimum rates of wage were repeatedly advanced under its orders. In June 1921 the lowest rate amounted to 433. 6d. per week of 52 hours in summer and 48 in winter, and this rate prevailed in the English counties where the average rate of wages before the war was not more than 153. An incidental result of the wage regulation was the practical abolition of all allowances which in many parts of the country were made to labourers in lieu of cash, e.g. milk, potatoes, bacon, coal, etc. A deduction may still be made for cottages but the amount of deduc- tion allowable is fixed by the wages board and may not exceed 35. a week. It may be noted that with one or two comparatively small exceptions the minimum wage regulations succeeded in avoiding strikes in the agricultural industry during a period in which labour conditions were very disturbed.
The Corn Production Act, and in its turn the Agriculture Act, thus represent a definite attempt on the part of the State to frame a constructive policy for agriculture in the national interest. The two main interests concerned, the farmers and the labourers, were given some security of a return for their work, the State obtained increased production and some control over the use of the land. Should it prove, however, that even with guaranteed prices the occupiers of land were not responding by an increase of production to any pay- ments made by the State under the guarantees, the purpose of the Act would be unfulfilled. To meet this the Act gave the Ministry power by Order in Council to give four years' notice of the determi- nation of its powers under Part I. of the Act, which dealt with the system of guarantees, the control of cultivation and the regula- tion of wages.
It should be noted that the Agriculture Act contemplated the delegation of the powers of the Ministry to control cultivation to committees of the county agricultural committees which were set up by the Ministry of Agriculture Act of 1919. This was a continua- tion of the procedure adopted during the war, when the Board of Agriculture appointed county executive committees in order to carry out the orders under the Defence of the Realm Act for the increase of food production.
The second part of the Agriculture Act of 1920 also contained a series of provisions amending considerably the Agricultural Hold- ings Acts. The main feature of this legislation entitles a tenant who is given notice to quit to compensation for disturbance. This com- pensation amounts to one year's rent, or, if greater, to the proved loss and expenses incurred in quitting the holding, up to a maximum of two years' rent. Compensation is not payable to a tenant who was not cultivating his holding according to the rules of good hus- bandry, or who had failed to comply with an order to pay arrears of rent or to repair a breach of covenant. The landlord may also demand that the question of the rent payable for the holding shall be submitted to arbitration and if the tenant refuses to agree to this de- mand may then give him notice to quit without compensation for disturbance. The Agriculture Act applied to Great Britain only, and the procedure of the Corn Production Act in setting up an agricultural wages board for England and Wales was somewhat modified as regards Scotland and Ireland.
In 1919 the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries Act was passed, which, besides changing the title of the Board of Agriculture, set up a council of agriculture for England and Wales, partly elective and partly representative, which should meet at least twice a year for the purpose of discussing matters of public interest relating to agriculture and of making representations to the minister. From these councils are selected the members of the Agricultural Ad- visory Committee, which has the duty of advising the Ministry on all matters (except as regards fishing) relating to the exercise of the powers of the Ministry. These two bodies resemble in many respects the Council and Board of Agriculture in Ireland, though neither of them possesses that control over expenditure which the Board of Agriculture in Ireland can exercise over the expenditure of the endowment fund enjoyed by the Department of Agriculture in Ireland. The Act also provides for the setting up by the county council in each county and in certain county boroughs of an agricul- tural committee. These committees must set up sub-committees to deal with small holdings and allotments, with the powers to regulate cultivation delegated to them by the Ministry under the Corn Production and Agriculture Acts, and with drainage under the Land Drainage Act of 1918. This committee may also, by the direction of the county council and with the concurrence of the Board of Education, take over from the Education Committee the control of agricultural education.
Land drainage for generations has been the subject of legislation, but it was evident that existing powers were inadequate to provide for the efficient management of the drainage of the majority of the river basins of England and Wales. In many areas there was a multiplication of authorities, many of whom possessed insufficient rating powers to be able to carry out works falling within their area but vital to the whole river basin. In other cases the area was inadequate or the existing commissioners of sewers failed to execute their duties. The Drainage Acts of 1914 and 1918 gave the Ministry of Agriculture powers to make orders constituting drainage districts, altering the boundaries of existing drainage areas or enlarging their powers of levying rates or borrowing. The Ministry may also act itself in default of any drainage authority or may delegate its powers to a committee of the county council or councils of the area con- cerned, though its power of executing any such work of drainage and of recovering from the owners affected is limited to schemes costing not more than 5,000. By means of these Acts and of the Defence of the Realm Act powers possessed by the county executive commit- tees, much valuable work had been accomplished by 1921 in cleaning out the smaller watercourses and improving the drainage of many minor areas subject to flood or unfertile because of waterlogging. Larger schemes exist for dealing comprehensively with important areas like the Ouse basin, which embraces some of the most valuable land in the Fens, but these schemes are likely to remain in abeyance while the difficulties of financial stringency and high cost of labour prevail.
One of the heaviest tasks which was assigned to the Board of Agriculture at the close of the war was the settlement upon the land of such ex-service men as desired holdings and could show their suitability to occupy land. Under the Small Holdings and Allot- ments Act of 1908 county councils had been empowered to purchase land and equip it for small holdings, but it was necessary that the schemes they framed for this purpose should show a reasonable
Frospect of being self-supporting on the rents that could be expected, t was evident, however, at the close of 1918 that little settlement of ex-service men could be effected upon such terms. Not only had the price of land, especially of land suitable to small holders, increased very largely, but the cost of buildings, equipment and adaptation, necessary in the majority of cases before a small holder can be placed upon the land, had grown to three or four times its pre-war magni- tude. No such rents could be charged as would make the small holdings pay, nor could county councils be expected to burden their rates with the losses that would accrue if the holdings were let at reasonable rents. Accordingly, by the Land Settlement Act of 1919, the State accepted this liability and allotted a sum of 20,000,000 for the provision of holdings for ex-service men.. The Act retained the county councils as the agencies for the provision of small holdings, and strengthened their powers to acquire land compulsorily for the purpose by purchase or by hiring. In the main the 20,000,000 men- tioned above has been lent to the county councils in order to enable them to acquire land and adapt it for letting as small holdings.
The county councils could not take up such loans, did not the Act further empower the Ministry for seven years after the passing of the Act to pay to the county councils any losses they had incurred in the provision of holdings under approved schemes. The loss each year consists of the excess of the loan charges over receipts for rent together with administrative expenses. Then on April I 1926 a valuation is to be made of all the land acquired by county councils under the Small Holdings Act, and this valuation will be compared with the liabilities incurred by the council. The Ministry will then assume the responsibility of paying such portion of the loan charges due from the council as represented the excess of liabilities over the valuation. Finally the councils will be left as owners of the small holdings that have been set up, with only such charges to meet as might reasonably be expected to be covered by the rents in the then conditions of the land market.
By the end of May 1921 some 34,000 applications for holdings had been received in England and Wales alone, 29,000 of which had been approved by the county councils; 277,000 ac. of land had been acquired, and 15,000 men had already been placed upon it. Slow as this progress may at first sight appear it has to be remembered that land cannot be acquired at short notice nor sitting tenants displaced except at the cost of burdening the scheme with impossible charges for compensation. The work of building and adaptation had also had to be carried out under the most difficult and burdensome con- ditions, at a time when both labour and materials of all kinds were abnormally deficient. In the great majority of cases the holding created was inevitably uneconomic, in the sense that the capital outlay on land, buildings and roads, fencing and other incidentals, cannot be repaid by the rents which can be paid under anything like existing conditions. The total cost of the scheme to the State, i.e. the expenditure that would have to be written off as not represented by the market value of the resulting holdings, can only be estimated, but seemed likely to amount to about 8,000,000. Undoubtedly the State accepted a very heavy financial responsibility in this scheme of land settlement for ex-service men, but it had to be taken as a partial repayment of the debt due from the State to the men who fought for it. As part of the national policy they were promised access to the land, and the conditions prevailing at the close of the war made it impossible to redeem that promise except at a loss.
