A BUSINESS PROPOSITION. 61 



to gross output is over 500 per cent. The relation to net out- 

 put, that is gross output less purchases, is nearly 800 per cent, 

 against 115 per cent, as the average of English industry, ex- 

 clusive of Agriculture. In a typical trade connected with farm- 

 ing, that of the feed and fertiliser merchants, the merchants 

 state that the relation is about I2| per cent., which means 

 they turn over their capital eight times a year and the farm once 

 in eight years. The high relation of capital to turnover is the 

 first important fact on the financial side of farming. The 

 second is that the farmer stands between the upper and nether 

 millstones of commerce, in a peculiar degree. We all have the 

 upper eternally rubbing us, but it does not grind because we 

 can generally pass the price on to the customer. But the farmer 

 has no distributing machinery and he cannot do this. I must 

 again appeal to a table to illustrate the point (Table IV). 



That is, a purchase starts from the factory at 53 and gets on 

 to the farm at 105, and a sale starts off the farm at is. 2%d., 

 and gets to the consumer at 2s. 2%d. The farmer pays double 

 costs and receives half the sales prices. Of course, there are 

 legitimate expenses in between, but the facts contain a moral 

 and constitute the second important point. The third I draw 

 from another of my dull tables the manufacturing activities 

 of the Industrial Co-operative Movement (Table V). From 

 this it will be seen that over two-thirds of the total is composed 

 of dressing the farmer's product. The summary of the three 

 points is this : 



The farming industry requires to turn over its capital more 

 frequently, to control its purchasing and distributing machinery 

 so that it can pass on its fair and reasonable costs to the con- 

 sumer, and to cease paying profits to every unwelcome inter- 

 loper who can manage to intrude between the factory and the 

 farm, and between the farm and the consumer. This can only 

 be done by capital combined with expert management, and I 

 am round to my starting point " where is the management ? " 



Lest it be said that I give only destructive criticism, I furnish 

 a table (Table VI) which contains the idea of a real business 

 of farming. The figures can be filled in when my original 

 simple questions are answered. The first column should con- 

 tain the gross return from farming as paid by the consumer ; 

 the second, retailing costs only, no profits to middlemen ; the 

 third, the costs of bacon factories, slaughter-houses and whole- 

 saling operations ; the fourth, the cost of imported wheat and 

 meat, by which I imply that the way to control foreign com- 

 petition is to take a profit on its milling and slaughtering ; 

 and the last column is to contain the value of home farm pro- 

 ducts based on an intelligent understanding of costs. 



If you will study the departments of Food Production and 



