74 THE GREEN RISING 



rope, and more land was brought under cultivation. 

 The large landowners profited by this situation, as 

 the new land was usually reclaimed from waste. The 

 increase in population led to a surplus of agricultural 

 laborers which reduced the wage scale paid for agri- 

 cultural production. 



This was the general situation when the World 

 War began, which resulted in a disorganization of 

 social classes and economic groups unparalleled in 

 modern history. The peasantry of Europe were 

 ready to take advantage of the opportunities that 

 came to them after the war had ended. Agrarianism 

 swept from East to West, from the plains of Russia 

 through the heart of central Europe, and on to the 

 countries bounded by the Mediterranean Sea and 

 the Atlantic Ocean. 



As has been said, this Agrarian Revolution did 

 not take the same form in all countries. It ranged 

 all the way from land nationalization in Eastern and 

 Southeastern Europe to the most obvious economic 

 reform in Italy, France, and Great Britain. But, as 

 Ifor L. Evans has said in the volume to which refer- 

 ence has been made: "This latest phase of the ag- 

 rarian question should be regarded, not merely as a 

 great and revolutionary innovation, the undesired 

 offspring of Slavo-Marxian doctrines, but rather as 

 the outcome, at once logical and inevitable, of cen- 

 turies of human history." 



