Agricultural History Review, Volume 45 Part 2 (1997), pp. 176–194

In the sunmaer of 1921 the Lloyd George government repealed the Agriculture Act 1920, just six months after its enactment, when faced with a seriously deteriorating economic situation, plummeting cereal prices, and the prospect of substantial subsidies payable under its interventionist provisions. The act was a continuation of a wartime and post-war policy of controlling agriculture, and thereby protecting it in peacetime from world competition in the interests of greater self-sufficiency in food. The period following 1921 was the last time that free trade in agriculture was attempted in Britain, and therefore that date forms a watershed in British economic and social history. The sudden move away from the control of agriculture, in favour of laissez-faire, has since been hailed by Whetham as 'the great betrayal' of farming. But, if anyone, it was the farm worker who was betrayed by a secret deal between the government and the National Fanalers' Union which paid farmers a bounty in exchange for their acceptance of the policy reversal. Farml workers received nothing in compensation for the demise of the Wages Board. The incidents in this story show, first, the crude exercise of power by government and its kindred interests. They also show, secondly, the fragility of the political case for the nurturing of agriculture at this time and, thirdly, the major effect that the deteriorating economic circumstances had on the way that decisions were made. 

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