AGRARIAN POLITICS. 85 



to make a very ample allowance for the changes and chances 

 to which Agriculture is exposed, which no human skill can 

 guard against. The cutting of a field of corn may be turned 

 by twenty-four hours' rain and wind from an operation costing 

 55. to one costing 355. an acre. Such weather as we have had in 

 the north and north-west this year may, indeed, prevent there 

 being any harvest at all. All this must be allowed for. But 

 further than this no one need go ; and we may be pretty certain 

 that under the terrific burden of taxation which we shall have 

 after the war the community will not go. The present state 

 of things will be a lesson, or should be. We have, for instance, 

 recently had to fix milk prices. It was essential that there 

 should be no reduction of the milk supply. What was it, there- 

 fore, necessary to do ? We had to find out what was the cost 

 of milk production in that district in Great Britain where it 

 cost most, and give the producers there a reasonable profit. 

 The producers there may not practise milk recording, they 

 may keep bad bulls, there may be no co-operation in dealing 

 with their supplies. No matter. We were at their mercy, and 

 so we shall have milk this winter at lod. a quart. That sort 

 of thing is not good enough, and we ought not to be asked to 

 repeat it. 



It is fair, then, to ask the consumer who wants a secure food 

 supply to make its production reasonably remunerative on a 

 strictly business basis of organisation of the producing industry. 

 But the converse has to be considered. Is it fair to expect the 

 farmer to organise his industry on this basis ? I think so, now 

 as never before. Farmers now have, or should have, more 

 capital than they have ever had before. They have been in 

 the past, in many instances, more or less in the hands of auction- 

 eers and traders. If they have not got free, or cannot now get 

 free, they deserve very little consideration. They are, in fact, 

 free to make what they like of their industry. The war has, in 

 many ways, taught them to combine. They only need to use 

 their power of combination for the public good as well as for 

 their own to have before them extremely bright prospects. 

 There is also now, clear for all to see, a strong compelling force, 

 though it is in the nature of a goad, and it would be so much 

 pleasanter to lead than to drive. It is this : that unless farmers 

 organise themselves from within in co-operative societies, they 

 will be much less pleasantly organised from without by State 

 officials. The fear of controllers and inspectors and orders may 

 do what neither self-interest nor public spirit can accomplish. 

 But if farmers refuse to organise, what then ? The answer of 

 the State will, I expect, be perfectly prompt. Let us take over, 

 and let them give place to those who will. I do not personally 

 think that land nationalisation is better than my ideal of a truly 



