Orders of the Day — Agriculture.

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at on 20 December 1927.

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Photo of Mr David Lloyd George Mr David Lloyd George , Caernarvon District of Boroughs

That is just like the rest of the statements of the hon. Gentleman; it is absolutely untrue, and not merely is it untrue, but he has not taken the trouble to find out whether it is true or false, and it makes no difference to him. In the Green Book which the right hon. Gentleman quoted, we made exactly the same statement as the right hon. Gentleman made to-night, that the rural landlord was incapacitated, by reason of the fact that the taxes and the rates had gone up during the War, to give the same relief to agriculture, to finance agriculture, as he used to do in the past. Hon. Members smile, but they are hon. Members who never read a line of the Green Book. So that the first statement made by the right hon. Gentleman with regard to the Green Book is absolutely inaccurate.

What is the second statement that he made? The second statement he made was that we proposed to give directions to farmers how they are to cultivate the land. If he had read that book, he would have known that that was untrue. We do not propose in that book to give any directions to farmers. All that we do is that we propose that there shall be the same condition with regard to farming in future as there is incorporated at the present moment in every Crown estate agreement——[An HON. MEMBER: "And every ordinary agreement!"]—and every ordinary agreement as well. What is it? It is that the land shall be well cultivated, that it shall be a condition of the tenancy that the land shall be well cultivated. At the present moment you have 1,000,000 acres of this country that are nationalised. You talk as if nationalisation with regard to the ownership of land were some wild chimera, but at the present moment you have it in respect to 1,000,000 acres in this country. In the case not only of the Crown estates, but of estates of the county councils, in every agreement there is a condition that the land must be well cultivated, and officials of the county councils and of the Crown enforce those conditions. All we propose is, not that you should go to the farmer and say, "Here you must sow wheat, and there you must grow grass." The only condition we propose is the condition that you have in every great estate in the country, that the land must be well cultivated; otherwise, the tenant can be evicted. There is no difference in the proposal we make in the Green Book and the conditions which are made on every great estate in this country at the present moment, and if the right hon. Gentleman, instead of taking leaflets on the subject issued by the Conservative office, had read the Green Book, he would have known that. what he said was untrue. [Interruption.]