282 Sir A. Daniel Hall [April 26, 



we consumed. Of meat we produced 60 per cent, of our consump- 

 tion ; both of wheat and bread, which represents ?0 per cent, of the 

 food of the people, we only grew one-fifth of what we consumed. 

 What a position for a nation at war with an adversary that can make 

 a bid to cut off our supplies ! And Germany is making that bid in 

 spite of what we held was our overmaste^'iug fleet. 



Let us think for a minute of what onr neglect of agriculture, our 

 contentment with the position of being importers of half our food is 

 costing us. First of all, we may be cut off from our food, may have 

 to stop fighting because we have not enough to eat. It has only 

 become perceptible in this last year that the food supply in the whole 

 world is limited ; there is not an inexhaustible reserve for us to draw 

 upon, and external supplies are running short. Even if we escape 

 that last despair we have to use a large proportion of the strength of 

 our navy, strength that is wanted for fighting purposes, to protect 

 the entry of food ships. Again, we have to pay for the food in 

 foreign countries, pay at enormously enhanced rates at a time when 

 we want to retain every penny within our own islands. Our food 

 bill forms the most onerous of debts to a nation at war, debt to a 

 foreign creditor. Food, too, must be tlie first charge on our shipping, 

 and shipping is the limiting factor in this war. Suppose the shipping 

 we must fill with our food were now free to bring American soldiers 

 and their food to our help in France ! 



What could we do to meet the situation ? The answer is plain — 

 plough up our grass land and get back to the state of 1872, or even 

 a more productive condition. But here is seen the full measure of 

 the danger into which we have fallen ; when land is put down to 

 grass the land is still there, but before long the means of ploughing 

 it up are gone — the men have left for other occupations, the horses 

 are gone, ploughs, harness, buildings are lacking, sometimes even 

 the knowledge of arable cultivation has been forgotten. If you let a 

 building go to ruin it will not be ready for occupation at an hour's 

 notice, still less will an organisation, a society, begin to function 

 again. 



Still, what has been done can be done. But for the first two years 

 and more of the war it was not thought worth while to make any 

 determined attempt to reconstruct agriculture and grow more food 

 at home, so great was the sway of the old pre-war conception that 

 agriculture was done for in this country, and that it was useless, even 

 wrong, to try to grow our oAvn food. But, late as it was, in January 

 of last year the campaign for increased food production was set on 

 foot under Mr. Protliero with Sir Arthur I^ee as his lieutenant in 

 command of the fighting forces. But you cannot step twice into the 

 same river ; as agriculture depends upon men, and the men available 

 in 1917 were fatally less than those still free in 1914, the power to 

 effect a wholesale change was gone. Still the aciiievement of the 

 Food Production Department has been enormous. This year we are 



