[Rowland Edmund Prothero [Lord Ernle], author, politician and first-class cricketer.] Two Autograph Letters Signed, as President of the Board of Agriculture, reporting on the wartime situation to the Speaker of the House of Commons [James Lowther].

See his entry in the Oxford DNB. Both letters 2pp, 12mo. In good condition, but with the first bearing two tape stains. Both folded for postage. Each signed ‘R. E. Prothero’ and addressed to ‘Dear Mr. Speaker’. ONE (1 July 1918): He explains that ‘Agricultural labourers are specially excluded from the category of men to whom the War Office appeal to the V.T.C is addressed’, but that it was ‘only to be expected, as I had pointed out, that the appeal would still be made to them and that they would go in the middle of the harvest season. / The scheme is opposed by the Min. of Nat Service and by the military heads of the W. O.’ A ‘special Cabinet meeting’ is to be held the following day, ‘to discuss the question, and, I hope, to cancel the appeal’. TWO (5 September 1918): Discussing the rapid deterioration of ‘cotton cake’ when in store. He has ‘repeatedly impressed this fact on the Ministry of Food, by whose orders the distribution of cake is held up. But their feeding stuffs Departt. is impervious to facts as well as arguments.’ He continues: ‘There is a good reason for doling out cake with a niggard hand, for it is extremely short and the Shipping Controller cannot afford tonnage for more imports. With the comparative failure of the root crops, the position looks like becoming serious.’ He continues in the same forthright way, including the observation that ‘Feeding stuffs would be better in the Board of Agriculture. But there is a big But.’ He explains that he has no authority in Scotland or Ireland, or ‘over mills’, and that he ‘cannot fix prices for any feeding stuffs’.