CHAPTER III. 



THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 



The development of agriculture Over-population prejudice Can the 

 soil of Great Britain feed its inhabitants ? British agriculture- 

 Compared with agriculture in France ; in Belgium Market garden- 

 ing : its achievements Is it profitable to grow wheat in Great 

 Britain ? American agriculture : intensive culture in the States. 



THE industrial and commercial history of the world 

 during the last thirty years has been a history of de- 

 centralisation of industry. It was not a mere shifting 

 of the centre of gravity of commerce, such as Europe 

 has witnessed in the past, when the commercial hege- 

 mony migrated from Italy to Spain, to Holland, and 

 finally to Britain : it had a much deeper meaning, as 

 it excluded the very possibility of commercial or indus- 

 trial hegemony. It has shown the growth of quite new 

 conditions, and new conditions require new adaptations. 

 To endeavour to revive the past would be useless : a new 

 departure must be taken by civilised nations. 



Of course, there will be plenty of voices to argue 

 that the former supremacy of the pioneers must be 

 maintained at any price : all pioneers are in the habit 

 of saying so. It will be suggested that the pioneers 

 must attain such a superiority of technical knowledge 

 and organisation as to enable them to beat all their 

 younger competitors; that force must be resorted to 

 if necessary. But force is reciprocal; and if the god 

 of war always sides with the strongest battalions, those 

 battalions are strongest which fight for new rights 



(40) 



