The Farmer 



House, men shall be present who make their 

 whole living out of the land. 



The first thing necessary is a special Parlia 

 mentary fund. 



About 170,000 farmers occupy farms of over 

 50 acres in England and Wales : if each man 

 could be induced to subscribe 2s. per annum to 

 such a fund an income of ;/^i7,ooo would be 

 provided — not a very large amount, but sufficient 

 to begin with and to do much good to the cause 

 of agriculture. Or, better still, if every occupier 

 of agricultural land — there are 450,000 — could 

 be induced to give is. per annum a fund of 

 ^22,500 would be provided. 



I should be grieved if this chapter gave the 

 impression that I am belittling English farmers 

 as a whole. I think it is wonderful how they 

 have stood up against adversity — how, disunited, 

 they have nevertheless withstood the com- 

 petition of new countries, and that in spite of 

 the fact that they have been more than neglected 

 by their own government, while their foreign 

 brothers were given every possible aid. Further, 

 they have had to pay more than double the 

 railway rates paid by continental farmers. 



Yet with all this the standard of comfort and 

 style of living is certainly much higher in 

 England than amongst the continental agri- 

 culturists, with the sole exception of Denmark. 

 This does not however preclude the fact that 



III 



