Land Problems and National Welfare 



party? I can only repeat Mr. Blatchford's 

 words, " Wanted, a man." 



From the agricultural point of view the most 

 satisfactory solution of the political problem 

 would be the formation of a National party — of 

 a party pledged to reforms and clearly recognis- 

 ing the immediate need of a complete land 

 policy, for the reason that all other reforms could 

 only be made effective and satisfactory by 

 basing them on land reform. The great danger 

 of the moment is that though various sets of 

 politicians are interested in this or that reform, 

 no important group has as yet stated clearly 

 that they recognise the fact that land reform is 

 the basis of all reform, or indeed that they 

 realise how closely land, education, tariff, poor 

 law and housing reforms are inter-related, and 

 that they are fully aware of the impossibility of 

 dealing with one of these without giving the 

 most careful consideration to the whole group. 



Even at the risk of an undue digression I must 

 refer to Mr. Balfour's attitude towards land, as 

 it is of such importance to the agriculturist. 



Although he has recently written a most 

 excellent preface to Sir Gilbert Parker's pamph- 

 let " The Land and the People," I cannot feel 

 that he has yet made the cause of land his own 

 — that he realises that land is the fundamental 

 problem of all, that a flourishing agriculture is 

 essential for the whole country and also neces- 



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