PKIIMAXEXT .{(IHlcri/rntE AXD DEMO('n.\rY 



545 



where is the sufficiency of it as a source 

 of supplies, togetlier with the satisi'ac- 

 tions and opportunities for conifortal)le 

 living and advaiicenieiit that it offers 

 those who engage in it. Considered 

 from this angle, the agriculture of 

 China is not satisfactory and therefore 

 is not successful : most agricultun", 

 considering the world as a whole, is 

 neither satisfactory nor successful. 



This brings us to a statement of tli;' 

 two theories, or at least the two prac- 

 tices, as to the place of agriculture in 

 society. On the one basis, the farmer 

 comprises a substratum of human 

 beings whose necessity it is to provide 

 subsistence for higher strata from 

 which are to come tlie leaders, thinkers, 

 artists, rulers. On the other basis, the 

 farm class itself is a lateral and co- 

 operating factor in affairs, capable of 

 producing leaders, thinkers, artists, 

 rulers, a class coordinate rather than 

 subordinate, directly related to civic 

 needs : this is the American idea. You 

 will agree that we cannot have a democ- 

 racy on the former basis, which is the 

 theory of the subordinate or peasant 

 class. You will now better understand 

 that the farmer is the fundamental fact 

 in a democracy. 



On the one basis rest autocracy, 

 aristocracy, oligarchy, arrogancy, tyr- 

 anny, stratified social systems, whatever 

 the name of the government. On the 

 other basis rests the possibility of free 

 institutions. The farmer should have 

 equal privileges with any other man to 

 develop himself and to partake in all 

 affairs, not to be merely a mudsill on 

 which a superstructure may rest. 



Democracy rests on the land, on such 

 a division of it and such an ease of ac- 

 quiring it and such freedom of estab- 

 lishing new ownerships and combina- 

 tions, as will allow the farmer to buy 

 and to sell it in his own name, and as- 

 sure him the economic and civic free- 

 dom to make the most of himself as a 

 man. This is equivalent to saying that 

 the man is \\\i)vi' important than thccrop. 



By this 1 do not mean that every 

 man shall be a farmer, or that in the 

 future state of society every man shall 

 raise his own sustenance. This social- 

 istic notion belongs to the idyls of 

 poetry. But a man shall not be bound 

 and chained to a hereditary piece of 

 land. King says that in China one 

 sixth of an acre of good land is ample 

 for the maintenance of one person. No 

 man should be sentenced to one sixth 

 of an acre of land. 



While democracy rests on the land, 

 it does not rest on landlordism: quite 

 the contrary. There is no aristocracy 

 so hateful and so difficult to dislodge as 

 the aristocracy of land. Landlordism 

 is not agriculture; the agrarian ques- 

 tions in the different countries are not 

 agricultural questions. However free 

 a peoi)Ie may be politically, if a large 

 part of the land is held by a relatively 

 few families and beyond their reach, 

 that people cannot be a democracy. 



The world troubles of the present 

 rest very largely, and in fact mostly, on 

 the iniquities of land confiscations and 

 territorial expansion. The world is 

 trying at this moment to wrest from 

 Germany — I hope for Germany's good 

 — the usurpations of feudalism and to 

 give back to the people some of the 

 powers and initiatives to which we sup- 

 pose all people are born. 



These many statements have come 

 out of my reflection on the situation in 

 China. We are told that China has a 

 ])ermanent agriculture : I think that 

 this is the most serious difficulty with 

 China. If the agriculture of China is 

 permanent, then there is no outlook for 

 the Chinese people except that they 

 shall remain just what they are. The 

 same remark can be made for other 

 peoples. Jf this type of ])ermanent 

 agriculture is to be the final i)ractice of 

 mankind, then there is no pros))ect of 

 advancement and progress for the race 

 as a whole. We must distingiiish 

 sharply between permanent agriculture 

 and stationarv aLiriculture. 



