PAET IV 

 AGRICULTURAL ORGANISATION AND POLICY 



CHAPTER I 

 ORGANISATION OF AGRICULTURE 



THE duty of the Government of a country is obviously to 

 encourage agriculture to the utmost, and to make it as attractive 

 as other pursuits, both to the capitalist and to the peasant or 

 labourer. What is wanted is a genuine and steadfast encourage- 

 ment of agriculture, a removal of difficulties from its path, and 

 the adoption of such a policy, and such an attitude towards it 

 and those who pursue it, as will make it reasonably certain 

 that it shall afford as good prospects as any other form of 

 enterprise to the planter, peasant, or labourer. 



To ensure the end in view it is no use nibbling at the 

 numerous fringes of the problem. A definite policy must be 

 adopted, and the efforts of all the various departments of 

 Government and other organisations directed steadily and 

 resolutely to the carrying out of this policy. The essentially 

 important points to be aimed at must be carefully distin- 

 guished from the less essential, and effort directed towards 

 them. And not towards one or two of them only, but towards 

 all at once. There must be full and complete concentration 

 and continuity of effort towards the same end. 



Perhaps the greatest weakness in the present state of affairs 

 in many tropical countries is this very lack of concentration 

 of effort and of a definite policy on the part of the Govern- 

 ment 1 . Everyone, from the highest to the lowest, is anxious to 



1 This was written in 1908, and things have changed greatly since that date,. 

 but is left as of historic interest. 



