So BIOLOGICAL PROBLEMS 



material with which to manufacture food, which the 

 human race in a thickly populated area must have 

 created in great abundance if it is to carry on. 



A third class, who are of the utmost importance to 

 our analysis of the past, remains to be considered. 

 These were they who in striving to remain in the first 

 class failed and fell by the way. Their sad story has 

 had a very deterrent effect upon food production in 

 England during the first years of the present century. 

 For many reasons prices improved after 1900 had 

 passed, but farmers could not forget the story of those 

 who fell in the cruel and unequal struggles of the late 

 'seventies, and the terrible farming years of the 'eighties 

 and even the 'nineties. 



Further, " good times", due no doubt partially to 

 the cheapness of food in our cities, drew away from 

 the country the more intelligent and the men of best 

 physical development from among the agricultural 

 labourers. Again, in many districts the times, though 

 improved, were not good enough to allow of adequate 

 wages being offered by all those wishing to farm once 

 again. I am not here to defend those agriculturists 

 who took advantage of this dearth of competition to 

 secure for themselves good labour for an inadequate 

 wage, for I know only too well that they are without 

 excuse, and I know that their conduct is to a certain 

 extent responsible for the slowness of the revival of 

 universal farming in England. I can, however, assert 

 that in the great majority of cases the wages paid, 

 poor as they may have been, were as high as the 

 employer could afford, and, again, often quite adequate 

 remuneration for the class of service rendered: for the 

 constant withdrawal of the best men from the land 

 had led to a marked reduction in the worth of the 

 labour that those who remained could, or would, in 

 return, give for their wage. 



