Conclusion 2 1 3 



" the prosperity of the country. If war breaks out, our commerce and 

 " industries suffer, and the wage-earners find their means of subsistence 

 " threatened. The result is an immediate lessening of the demand for 

 " luxuries, and a consequent diminution of prices for the farmer. Thus 

 " the farmer now, in place of being interested in war, has a supreme 

 "interest in peace; and as the small holders will be almost entirely 

 "occupied with producing luxuries their interests will lie in the same 

 "direction, and so they will be a powerful factor along with the 

 " farmers in the preservation of peace." 



There is then harmony between the modern developments of 

 English agriculture and agricultural holdings and the interests of the 

 great mass of the population. Ricardo's dictum, that the interests 

 of agriculture were irreconcilably opposed to those of the rest of the 

 community, is no longer true. Since 1 846 England has refused to 

 sacrifice the good of the whole to the interest of any class ; it has 

 ceased to protect its corn-producers from foreign competition. To 

 this policy it owes the rapid development of the small holding system, 

 and the technical improvements in agricultural methods of the last 

 five and twenty years. To this policy it is due that the inevitable 

 crisis of 1880 onwards did not spell ruin, but led to the gradual re- 

 organisation of the agriculture of the country. To this policy above 

 all is due the harmony of interest between that re-organised agricul- 

 ture and the needs of the great majority of the English people. 



