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if the maximum amount of land were to be gradually converted from 

 pasture into tillage, not only would our normal supply of food be very 

 largely increased, but immediately upon the suggestion of an outbreak 

 of war a scheme of war-cropping, designed to produce the maximum 

 of food for direct consumption, could be put into action. 



However, the farmer is not likely to undertake the risk of an extension 

 of his arable farming under the conditions which have prevailed during 

 the past generation. Grass farming is safe and pleasant ; it requires 

 less capital and less labour than arable farming, and it is less dependent 

 for success or failure upon the seasons. Thus, unless there are sufficient 

 grounds for believing that the growth of the world-population, combined 

 with the exhaustion of the supply of uncultivated wheat lands, will 

 cause prices to remain in the future at a higher level than those pre- 

 vailing in pre-war days, the conclusion is forced upon us that an 

 extension of the tillage area of Great Britain, for the production of 

 more food, will only be brought about through artificial stimulus. 

 Nor can that artificial stimulus be applied simply by the condition of 

 war-prices. Even with wheat at 80s. per quarter, and the price of 

 bread advanced by 100 per cent., farmers have found- it impossible, 

 in a moment, to take advantage of the prices to grow more food. The 

 labour is not there, the horses are not there, the implements are not 

 there, and the technical skill is not there, so that to leave the breaking-up 

 of grass until the emergency arises is to court failure. In dealing with 

 this question of policy there must be no hesitation and no half -measures. 

 If we are going to aim at increasing our own food supply to the extent 

 of being self-supporting during a war, we must set on foot immediately 

 some policy which will give the British farmer sufficient confidence 

 in the market to induce him to bring about a re-conversion of large 

 areas of grass-land into tillage. 



It is for the working men of Britain to say whether they will apply 

 this stimulus to the farmer, or whether they will trust to our ability 

 to keep the sea routes open in all circumstances ; the former course 

 might cost the nation a few millions annually, the latter if the trust 

 were not fulfilled might bring the people face to face with starvation. 

 This is the greatest question, probably, which we shall be called upon 

 to decide in the near future. It is a question particularly for the 

 urban industrial population, for. as the Germans have proved, in a 

 time of national scarcity it is the town-dwellers who suffer most, since 

 no system of control can prevent the rural worker from consuming his 

 own vegetables and putting his own fowl in the pot. Let the great 

 industrial classes realise that they have got to face this question and 

 to make up their minds what the national policy is to be. It has 

 not yet been put to them plainly and forcibly, but there is no doubt 

 that the sooner they realise the nature of the decision they have got 

 to make, the better for their future it will be. 



Whatever the decision to which the nation may come in this question 

 of the reorganisation of agriculture from the outside, much is still 

 waiting to be done for it by means of internal reorganisation before it 



