Mr Samuel Rosbotham: Can my right hon. Friend say if the holding up of the Drainage Bill in another place is retarding this work.
Mr Samuel Rosbotham: Is my right hon. Friend going to ask for powers to take over this area to drain it, and to make it public property?
Mr Samuel Rosbotham: There are several areas in the country.
Mr Samuel Rosbotham: Will the notice of the housewives of Birmingham be called to this policy of the wholesale butchers?
Mr Samuel Rosbotham: May I call attention to the fact that 40 Members are not present?
Mr Samuel Rosbotham: I am sure that the House will agree that the two hon. Members who have spoken on behalf of agriculture have presented a very weak case. I should like to draw attention to the action of a Conservative Minister in 1921 in withdrawing Part I of the Corn Production Act doing away with the payment of prices to the cultivator and the provision of a living wage to the agricultural worker. The War...
Mr Samuel Rosbotham: If right hon. Gentlemen and hon. Members opposite are so anxious to do something for agriculture, why do they not persuade the owners of the land to drop the rents to the extent of the 33⅓ per cent. by which they advanced them. All that the late Conservative administration could boast of was that they de-rated the land. We were only paying on one-fourth of our land at the time that Act came...
Mr Samuel Rosbotham: The Conservatives failed to get a conference because the agricultural worker had not confidence in the Conservative Government.
Mr Samuel Rosbotham: The agricultural workers have no confidence in the Conservative Government. What happened after they had struck out Part I of the Corn Production Act? In Norfolk, the wages of the agricultural workers were brought down to 23s. and a strike took place, which lasted six weeks, on the point whether there should be an increase of one shilling a week. How can you expect the agricultural worker to...
Mr Samuel Rosbotham: I am sure that every Member of the Committee rejoices that we have had an opportunity of discussing the very important and national question of agriculture. I am really sorry for our Minister of Agriculture, because it has been impossible for him to announce a policy when he is only in a minority Government. I welcome most heartily the historic declaration which the right hon. Gentleman the...
Mr Samuel Rosbotham: 36. asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether in connection with the Government's efforts to reduce unemployment, any instructions have been given in his Department that, in accepting tenders for the supply of foodstuffs to institutions under its control, preference must be given to home produce and regard must be had to the economic standard of the workers in competing...
Mr Samuel Rosbotham: 77. asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he will make regulations as to grade designations and grade designation marks for shellfish?
Mr Samuel Rosbotham: Does the right hon. Gentleman think that this is not worth consideration by his Committee?
Mr Samuel Rosbotham: 28. asked the President of the Board of Education how many scholars in the elementary schools of England and Wales are being supplied daily with milk; is he satisfied with the Reports received as to the benefits derived; and, if so, will he give every encouragement to local education authorities to extend the system?
Mr Samuel Rosbotham: 56. asked the Minister of Agriculture what steps he proposes to take to provide and maintain publicity for national-mark schemes introduced by his Department in order that the general public may be better informed as to the advantages to be obtained by the purchase of national-mark Home products?
Mr Samuel Rosbotham: 57. asked the Minister of Agriculture whether the advisory committee on agricultural science has yet reported upon the application from Wye College for a special research grant to enable investigations to be conducted into struck and gangrene diseases of sheep on Romney Marsh?
Mr Samuel Rosbotham: 99. asked the Minister of Agriculture the quantity of wheat produced in Great Britain for the 1928 and 1929 seasons?
Mr Samuel Rosbotham: 33. asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will state for the period September, 1929, to February, 1930, the quantity of German wheat imported into this country as compared with the corresponding period of the preceding year?
Mr Samuel Rosbotham: I have pleasure in supporting the Second Reading of this Bill. I have spent many happy moments at the tea-table with my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir J. Lamb) discussing agricultural questions, and I have an additional pleasure in supporting the Bill, because it was introduced by him. I hope that he will reciprocate in due course when the Minister of Agriculture brings in his great...
Mr Samuel Rosbotham: We hope in a few days, and as I came here with the honest intention of doing something to help agriculture, I shall be very disappointed if I have to go back to my constituents and tell them that I have not been able to do anything. Each Member of the House thinks his own Division the best, but I venture to claim mine as the best because, in part of my constituency, we have land which grows...
