3 



mally hidden behind a hundred other occupations, come 

 to the front. Men think little in times of plenty of the 

 labours which bring them the food that enables them 

 to live and work ; but let there be shortage and a wild 

 apprehension springs up in society and people realise 

 that it is upon you and your labours that they depend 

 altogether. You become the staff on which they lean. 

 Every) other occupation almost might disappear, but 

 yours never, without humanity disappearing, and any 

 failure of yours in time of necessity to equal the need 

 of the world inflicts the most terrible suffering on the 

 world 1 . Any neglect of duty in a time of necessity would 

 be as ignoble as the act of a Red Cross contingent who 

 on the battlefield neglected to attend to the wounded. 

 The longer the war continues the more insistent will be 

 the claims of the world upon you who can farm, you 

 over whose fields no armies have marched, to supply 

 the shortage of food brought about by the withdrawal 

 of millions of your class in Europe to take part in a 

 redder reaping than any the world has hitherto known. 



' Is, then, the necessity for food' production that has 

 arisen really so great," you may ask, " that we must 

 upset the normal routine of our industry? Are you, who 

 say this^ one of the many scaremongers whose souls 

 flare our in wild apprehensions and panic if anything 

 unusual happens in the world? Is there really fear of 

 shortage of the food supply of the world? Are people 

 in the islands in which we live in danger of famine?" I 

 can only say that those whose business it is to search 

 most deeply into the sources of supply are those who 

 are most deeply concerned about the future and the food 

 supply of the civil population in Europe. I can only 

 retail to you some facts which I believe to be accurate, 

 and you can form your own judgment. In theory, the 

 European countries at war can put somewhat over forty 

 million persons into the field. The law of conscription, 

 which prevails over Europe, allows few able-bodied men 

 to evade the obligation of leaving their normal occupa- 



