When the adjournment took place the other night I had just said that, encouraged by the success of Mr. Neville, of Furness, in the years 1778 and 1780, and by the old account books that we had in our possession for practically one hundred years, I began growing wheat. I had been tilling it long before in another place, but when I moved from the place which has now become the property of the Land Commission to where I am at present—it was about the year 1909— I began the growing of wheat. I am sorry that although I grew it for about nine or ten years, from 1909 or 1910 to 1918—that was the last year I did grow it—I had, on the whole, no success. A couple of years were extremely good, but one year, 1918, which I mentioned before, was an absolute wash out, and for years before that the result was very indifferent. I was growing this for a cash crop—it was the only cash crop I ever did grow. I consume all the other stuff I grow on my own land. All the roots and the oats I require for my horses, and all that I grow for myself. This, of course, I grew to sell, because I thought the ground, having such a good reputation, and apparently it deserved it; so far as the crops were concerned they looked all right. But when it came to the saving actually that was quite a different matter. I believe a small amount can be quite successfully grown; that is, if you are content with what will do your own house. My nearest neighbour during the war grew a certain amount of oats. He would like to have it quite pure, without any foreign stuff in it, but he was told by the millers that that was quite impossible. I am bound to say that I admired his energy and determination to use his own stuff. I do not think it was quite satisfactory. I should not have thought it sufficiently good to use. I would much rather use oaten bread myself than that. I was rather misled when I undertook the growing of wheat. I was led to do it on account of the reputed goodness of the land, because I looked up my old ledgers and, as I say, I have them a very long time.
They are as clear as if they were written yesterday. The handwriting is quite a lesson to us in these days when we trust to typewriters and when our writing is so bad. I looked up for instance the year 1800. I employ all the men I can afford. I have a large garden to work and a lot of other things to be looked after. I work in one thing with another. I find that in the year 1800 for the same amount of land as I have got there were just ten times as many people employed. I could not afford naturally in these days to employ that number of people to save my crops or to carry on my business. Of course, I regret to have to say that the wages paid in these days were infinitesimal. The names of these people in my ancestors' employment were all given with their ages, their sex and what they got per week. The wages of this number, ten times as many as I have got at present, did not come to as much as I pay at present. Of course, that was a very disgraceful state of affairs and not one that we would recommend in these days, but that was the case and it was no wonder with that number of people that they were able to save their crops satisfactorily. As I conclude they were able or they would not have gone on with it.
Furthermore,, I think comparisons with other countries are very fallacious. Their conditions may apparently be somewhat similar to ours, but when you come to examine them critically it does not work out to the same extent. I had some property in Yorkshire; I had also some in Lancashire. The latter I have still. Round my place in Yorkshire was an excellent wheat-growing district. The climate was apparently very much the same as it is over here; the seasons seem to be very much alike. There was about the same amount of rain and the crops came in practically the same time, with the same lateness and one could see in the farms around splendid fields of wheat collected carefully into stacks in the farmyards and kept carefully thatched until spring when it suited them to thrash them out. I have always found over here if I am going to preserve them at all that the threshing has to be done instantly. The sooner the better. I was never able to keep my wheat for any time. The sooner it was threshed the better. I think all those in my neighbourhood who went in for it have had the same experience. There is nobody who does it now particularly. Of course I found the straw extremely valuable for my horses; there is no better straw for horse bedding than wheaten straw, for the very good reason that they will not eat it. I think it was Deputy Kent who said that wheat was excellent for calf feeding and that sort of thing, but it would be rather expensive to grow wheat especially for that when there are other forms of food much less expensive and quite as good.
Statistics prove that the growing of oats does suit the country. I think it was stated that six or seven hundred thousand acres of oats were grown last year. I think there is great room for development in the oats growing. A great deal more could be done in that way. There are too much Canadian oats used in this country, and it is not necessary to use them. Even the racehorse could be very well supported on oats that are grown in this country. We could practically do without seed oats except for a change, perhaps, every four or five years. What we are all anxious about is that there should be more employment. That is at the bottom of the whole matter with all of us. There is certainly a necessity for it. There was never more so. Of that there is no doubt. This present winter, unfortunately, one sees a great many of the most excellent working class men going about unemployed. I never saw before unemployment to the same extent. Only the other day I had occasion to fill up a vacancy and I could have filled it many times over. It is a very deplorable state of things, and it is necessary that something should be done to lessen it. The question is what. It is no use trying to force on the growth of a cereal that will not do well in the country, and that the people will not grow. You may bring a horse to the water, but you will not make him drink. I do not think that any reasonable subsidy that could be given—I say reasonable because, of course, you could give something that would be absurd—would induce people to undertake wheat growing to any large extent. As Deputy Brennan said, you would grow what you want for yourself if you could save it, and be sure of it, but to grow it in any large quantity is out of the question. I speak with a certain amount of experience. I have gone in for working with my own hands, and learning everything about the work, because I believe in understanding these things. I found it paid me more than once exceedingly well to be able to carry out any and every part of my farm business. I can do everything of that kind myself, from milking to stacking, and I think everybody who does it in these days is wise.
To return to the unemployment question, I think if anything can be done to increase the consumption of oats and to increase the land under cultivation of oats it will be all to the good. People will do it in certain circumstances. It would not be difficult to induce them to do it, because they believe it can be done successfully. In the case of oats a bad season, in my experience, does not tell so fatally as it does in the case of other cereals. You may see a field swept down as if a steamroller had gone over it. When it is cut, threshed, and put in a proper loft where it can be turned and get plenty of air it is perfectly usable, although it may be slightly discoloured. It is quite good for horses. I do not know about racehorses. For that reason, I think it would be a much more sensible idea to foster oats than wheat. Of course, there are many ways in which an extension of tillage, which is so desirable, may be fostered. I quite agree that 12½ per cent. of tillage in the country is absurd. It ought to be increased. I do not see why by inducement it could not be done, but it will not be done by wheat. I am perfectly certain of that. There is now consideration going on before a Commission of a certain proposal. We have got to see if it will have the effect of increasing production. I hope, if it is proved that it will increase production, that effect will be given to it, because anything that will give employment to the men who are going about at present is all to the good. I have never seen it so bad in the country districts about me as it is at present. As Senator Johnson said last night at the National University—and I quite agree with him—we want more production of food and we want more industries. Anybody who can increase either one or the other is a person who is of service to the State.