Land Problems and National Welfare 



The landowner and the labourer play 

 important parts, but it is the farmer who 

 makes the agriculture of England, and it 

 is the average farmer, and not the exceptional 

 man, who sets the standard. I am glad 

 that my lot in life has led me to have deal- 

 ings with farmers, and they have ever been 

 pleasant dealings, the natural result of having 

 to do with practical men who make their living 

 off the soil — once the source of livelihood for 

 the majority of the sons of men, and which still 

 provides the best and happiest of all occupations. 



The chief curse of our present civilization is 

 that it tends to separate man from the land. 

 Conversely, land is the greatest palliative of 

 all the evils this civilization suffers from. This 

 is not properly understood in England. 



In this chapter I shall have to criticise — I 

 should not be an honest well-wisher to the 

 cause of agriculture if I did not criticise ; but I 

 offer my reflections in a most friendly and 

 sympathetic spirit. My interest is in agriculture 

 as a whole ; it is the cause of the agricultural 

 industry that I would make every effort to 

 advance, and not merely the wellbeing of land- 

 owner, farmer, or labourer apart from the whole. 

 It will be necessary for each section of the 

 industry to make some sacrifice before the con- 

 solidation of agricultural interests can be accom- 

 plished, but was ever a good cause furthered 



54 



