I would like to follow the hon. Member for Brigg (Mr. Quibell) in what he said about wage rates. One hon. Member on this side said that he was satisfied with the wage rates. I am by no means satisfied with those in force at present. I do not consider that they are fair, in view of what the agricultural worker is doing for the country. Much has been said about the value of this rapidly-dwindling body of men. We must be thankful that this minimum wage is being brought into operation as soon as it is. The fact that it has not been made higher is not the fault of the farmers or of the Wages Board. Nowadays, the Government are directly responsible for the price paid for agricultural labour. Surely, more direction should be given by the Minister to ensure that wages are raised to the correct level. If the Government are determined to see an equalisation of all wages in the country, the Minister can direct the Central Wages Board that he will increase the price to any level that the Wages Board think necessary. We are asking for an unparalleled effort from munition workers, and we are paying them an unparalleled price. No doubt, we all feel that people would do the same amount of work without those wages, but why should we not try the experiment in the agricultural industry and see whether a higher wage has the same effect on pro- duction as it has had in the munitions industries?

Which man is doing the more valuable work for the country at the present time —the navvy who is working on an aerodrome—and one sees him all too frequently sitting upon his barrow—and yet earning £5 a week or more, or the skilled agricultural worker who is doing his job of ploughing heavy clay or topping or tailing roots in foul weather and is only earning from £3 to 65s. a week? It is not a question of keeping down the price of food, nor is it a question of preventing a spiral rise in prices. Equal pay for equal work is a maxim that we hear frequently in the country to-day, and nobody can say that this maxim has ever been applied to agricultural workers. It has been stated already to-day that the basis of the wage rates of the country is the maximum wage which is paid to the agricultural worker, and that has always been the basis and the minimum of all wage rates, and yet, as the hon. Member for Brigg said, it is the most important commodity of the whole lot that this type of worker is producing. The Government have no real fair wage policy. The man who is fighting the enemy, the man who is braving the elements at sea, the man who is hewing coal to keep us warm, and the man who is wresting from nature our food is kept on a bare minimum. I consider that the Government ought to reconsider the whole question of wage rates throughout all industries and throughout all Services.

There are one or two other points that I would like to mention on the question of prices, and the first is that we have no knowledge of the price which farmers are to get for their wheat crop next year. Always the country as a whole is upbraiding the farmers for being unbusinesslike, and yet when they ask to be given a chance to be businesslike and ask for prices for their produce they are not given them until after they have committed themselves as far as they possibly can. No farmer has ever said that he would not grow wheat, and yet he goes into this type of fanning completely blind. If the Minister is thinking that because wages were likely to rise a few days ago he would hold his hand, I see no objection to his saying that the price of wheat next year will be so much a quarter, and then, if before the harvest circumstances should arise which altered that price, he could make "the alterations as they arose.

The second point is in regard to milk. Milk production has fallen, is falling and will go on falling mostly, I believe, for the simple reason that, although it might be fairly profitable to produce milk seven days a week, the constant worries of the milk producer do not make it worth while for a man to earn so low a wage when, if he goes into arable farming, he can make a very fair wage and a decent profit. I believe that a weighted average of 2s. a gallon is the minimum that should be put upon the industry. At the present time, working on the weighted average, the price of a gallon of milk wholesale is something like 19¾ pence. If you take into consideration the fact that the milk farmer is working all day, every day, including Sundays, and is out in all weathers, and moreover has constant troubles which always occur when you have breeding stock, I do not consider that he is being adequately recompensed for the great effort he is making.

Another small point that I would like to bring to the attention of my right hon. Friend is that in many cases—I believe more so in England than in other parts of the British Isles—there is a great deal of land which is very badly distributed, which makes it extremely difficult for an efficient farmer to keep down his costs. You get a farm with the buildings in the middle of the village, a few fields half a mile in one direction and other few fields in another direction and possibly other two or three somewhere else. I know of a farm with fields in three different parishes. I suggest to my right hon. Friend that he should issue instructions to his war agricultural committees to take this matter into consideration, and that, if any schemes are suggested to them, they should be given the power and encouragement to push those schemes through in the interests of the efficiency of food production.

I would say that, in regard to the preparation of plans for the agricultural industry in the future, we still have no master plan, and I, along with many other speakers to-day, ask the Minister whether he cannot give us some sign or encouragement that these plans are nearing, at any rate, a point where they can be broadcast to the farmers of the country. The reason why I bring this forward is that I know personally there is a strong feeling of insecurity in the minds of our farmers. They feel, rightly, that nothing has been said except a few general statements that can lead them to believe that their efforts in the last war will not be rewarded in the same way after this war. I would put this proposition to the House. At the present moment which would hon. Members regard as the better investment if they had as farmers £500 in the bank? Would they put them into 2½ per cent. Defence Bonds, or would they put them back into their land? I believe that the answer in the Majority of cases would be to put them into Defence Bonds, because that is a "certainty," whereas to put them into the land they might find in a few years that all their capital had gone. I realise that the Chancellor of the exchequer has a very unfair advantage there, but if he and his right hon. colleagues would get together on that matter, they would realise that the farmer should put his money into the land. The Minister is concentrating entirely upon food production and is making a very fine job of it, too. I do not know about other parts of the country except my own but I know there that the respect which the Minister has been shown in his work is growing largely and we ought to congratulate him very much indeed upon the efforts he has made. But even so I believe that every Member representing an agricultural Constituency should start every speech that he makes with these words, "We have not as yet a long-term agricultural policy."