THE HOME MARKET 303 



object of showing that it is to the land they must look 

 for the most hopeful remedy for the misery and desti- 

 tution which exist. 



In addition to a revival in ordinary farming, there 

 is the question of '' la petite culture'' — small farming 

 — which is a distinct branch of the agricultural in- 

 dustry. If it were restored on the lines suggested, 

 there seems to be no reason why a yearly increasing 

 part of the smaller articles of food now imported 

 should not be produced at home. Taken as a whole, 

 therefore, if the agrarian policy here advocated were 

 vigorously carried out, and Mr. Chamberlain's pro- 

 posals were adopted in connection with it, the whole 

 condition of English rural life would soon be changed. 

 Employment would be enormously increased, not only 

 for those immediately connected with the soil, but 

 also for those engaged in subsidiary trades, such as 

 the blacksmith, carpenter, miller, implement-maker, 

 saddler, wheelwright, etc. Our villages and market 

 towns, now in decay, would again become peopled and 

 prosperous. 



This is pre-eminently a labour question. Thou- 

 sands of men who are now competing with their 

 fellows in an overstocked labour-market in towns 

 would be drawn off to the land, there to produce 

 wealth to be spent largely in the very localities they 

 had left. 



The vast sums now spent with the foreigner for 

 food, and which go to enrich the workshops and retail 

 shops abroad, would, by the increased production of 

 our own mother earth, be largely devoted to the 

 benefit of similar concerns at home, and, what is of 

 great importance, the justifiable anxiety now felt as 

 to our food supply in time of war would be removed. 



