no THE MURDER OF AGRICULTURE 



The surplus thousands may be absorbed by manu- 

 factures, but the surplus millions only by the land. 

 Keystone This is the great central fact around which the entire 

 Situation question rotates; it is the keystone of the arch; the 

 pivot on which the fulcrum works; and yet, strangely 

 enough, it is persistently left out as a factor of no im- 

 portance at all, by all the Governments of the past, by 

 publicists, speakers, and by most of the Press. Study 

 The National Statute Book for years past, and see how 

 barren it is of effort to relieve the situation by means of 

 the land, save in one or two attempts to afford partial 

 relief. Listen to the rhetoric of platform orators, and 

 mark how carefully they avoid all reference to the land 

 as a factor in the most burning social question of the 

 day. 



Read your newspapers and notice that, while waging 

 a fierce, wordy war against political adversaries, and 

 clamouring for preference for the party they serve, they 

 studiously refrain from all mention of the land as of 

 the least importance on their political horizon. 



Party and policy rule the situation. Every man, be- 

 fore he enters Parliament, must first learn some political 

 creed, and that creed binds him, body and soul, to his 

 Party. Independence is lost; initiative is dead; he may 

 have ideas, but he never voices them, albeit in this he is 

 of use to his Party; he falls into what somebody has 

 called — " the general mush of concession," and his 

 usefulness to his country is lost. 



This is the common fate of most of our legislators 

 whom we elect and send to Westminster to represent us 

 — the people. That our interests are not served as they 



