CHAPTER XXIV 

 THE NEW ERA IN POLITICS 



The old order has gone, never to return. The 

 war has discarded the economic and political ideas 

 which have dominated our life for three centuries. 

 The laissez-faire philosophy that the government 

 should do as little as possible is a thing of the past. 

 It was the natural and the inevitable philosophy of 

 a people endowed with a continent so rich in eveiy 

 resource that we felt it could never be exhausted. 

 We could hardly wait until our inheritance had been 

 squandered. 



Unfortunately, we did not distinguish between the 

 things the state should retain and the things that 

 should be open to private possession. We did not 

 distinguish between the activities which the state 

 itself should perform, if it desired to preserve free- 

 dom for all, and the acti\dties which could be left 

 in private hands. Had we done so, had we taken 

 guidance in recent years from the experience of 

 other countries, we would not now be facing the 

 gravest problem that can confront a nation. 



And the condition of agriculture is a direct conse- 

 quence of this policy. We have wasted our re- 

 sources and permitted hundreds of millions of acres 



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