AGRARIAN POLITICS. 93 



use them for purely naval purposes. It means too that behind 

 the Navy you must have, not only a large reserve of merchant 

 seamen and merchant shipping, but gigantic facilities for the 

 building of ships. And it is clear that the shipbuilding resources 

 of the country will be reduced rather than increased if foreign 

 trade is allowed to languish. 



After expanding the argument that the welfare and 

 prosperity of the nation depend upon its mercantile marine, 

 he reached the following general conclusions : 



First, it is clear that a wise agricultural policy can be devised 

 only after an examination of the whole field of national economy. 

 The question is not an agricultural question only. It is not 

 even a purely economic question. For the dictates of economic 

 policy must be examined and criticised in the light of the require- 

 ments of social policy and Imperial Defence. Only if this is 

 done can we hope that our agricultural policy will promote the 

 welfare of the nation as a whole. 



Secondly, economic considerations suggest that British 

 Agriculture ought to be developed beyond the point which it 

 had reached in 1914, and, in view of the probable continuance 

 of a higher level of world-prices, that it should be developed 

 beyond the point to which in 1914 it would have paid us to 

 carry it. On the other hand, sound economy teaches that it 

 would be wasteful to make the Agriculture of these islands 

 more intensive than world-prices and world-competition allow. 

 Neither social advantages nor security in war would really be 

 obtained by pushing development beyond the maximum required 

 by economic considerations. The great need of Imperial Defence 

 is not the maximum production of food in time of peace, but the 

 maintenance of British Agriculture in such a condition that it 

 will be capable of great and rapid expansion in an emergency. 



It is necessary to bear in mind the chronology of the 

 various contributions to the discussion of agricultural 

 policy. Those of Mr. Acland and Mr. Lennard were made 

 in October, 1918, when the Corn Production Act had been 

 a little over a year on the statute book. The guaranteed 

 prices contained in that measure had been proved by 

 events to have no relation to the prices actually being 

 realised by corn-growers. The gap between the guaranteed 

 prices and the realised average prices may be shown by a 

 simple statement, thus : 



