FAILURE OF PRIVATE ENTERPRISE u 



which we make no attempt to put through the 

 tuberculin test, may be purchased unwittingly 

 by careful dairymen, and the milk from such 

 cows will be consumed by infants without even 

 the cowkeeper's knowledge. 



If there is one industry, surely, which cannot 

 be left to the tender mercies of private enter- 

 prise, it is agriculture. Yet, even when the 

 cataclysm of war swept over us, it was the one 

 industry in which private enterprise was 

 allowed to remain almost unchecked or un- 

 guided — I might say unprotected, if that word 

 did not give rise to so much misunderstanding. 

 Protection is needed against the foe within our 

 gates, rather than against the enemy without — 

 not only protection from weeds, pests, diseases, 

 bad drainage, and bad cultivation, but also from 

 game. In spite of Agricultural Holdings Acts, 

 the lust for the big bag goes on to-day un- 

 checked, to the detriment of agriculture. 

 Whilst one man, be he landowner or sporting 

 tenant-farmer, is allowed to rear pheasants and 

 harbour rabbits without let or hindrance, and the 

 farmer on the other side of the hedge has no 

 other remedy than a shadowy compensation (with 

 no right to kill game or ferret his neighbour's 

 banks, which are the breeding-ground of the 

 invading army of rabbits), it is useless for the 

 good farmer to attempt to grow corn or even 

 good herbage. 



