AGRARIAN POLITICS. 87 



may possibly win the chance of making a bare living from Eng- 

 land's future rulers." Cheer up, it will not be as bad as that. 

 But even if it be, has not the war taught us that it does not 

 much matter whether we make much money or little, provided 

 that we have a steady hard job, worth working at, that we 

 understand, and that we can work at it in association with men 

 whom we know and trust, and who know and trust us ? This, at 

 any rate, is the least that agricultural co-operation has to offer, 

 and I think that even on this basis the offer will not be made 

 in vain. 



I must append a story which some of us heard a few days ago. 

 A visitor had gone round an asylum and was much struck by 

 the small number of attendants. " What," he said to the 

 superintendent, " would happen if your inmates were to com- 

 bine ? " " Oh," he replied, " that's all right, lunatics never 

 combine." 



In the paper by Mr. R. V. Lennard above referred to the 

 application of economic principles to guaranteed prices 

 and minimum wages was dealt with very cogently after 

 laying down the maxim that " we must obtain our food 

 supplies and all the other commodities we need with the 

 least possible expenditure of energy," or, in other words, 

 we must buy in the cheapest market. This well-worn 

 dictum was qualified by the remark that British Agriculture 

 has become, and will continue to be, the cheapest market 

 for a considerably larger proportion of our food supplies 

 than was grown in this country before 1914. Mr. Lennard 

 proceeded : 



The various methods by which agricultural development may 

 be made to conform to the requirements of sound economy, the 

 various measures by which we may secure that as much food is 

 produced in this country as can be produced at the post-bellum 

 level of world-prices, and may prevent any more food than that 

 from being produced here for this is really what it comes to 

 are matters that need not be discussed in this place. There is, 

 however, one particular instrument for the encouragement of 

 Agriculture about which a word must be said. The continuance 

 of the system of guaranteed prices, if these prices are not fixed 

 any higher than the probable average level of world-prices, 

 would not necessarily conflict with the dictates of the economic 

 policy outlined above. Of course if the guaranteed prices were 

 any higher than the probable level of world-prices they would 

 be in direct opposition to the principles of that policy, for they 



