SHORTCOMINGS OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 41 



in order not to make their public incredulous. However, 

 the figures are there, in that country of systematic entry 

 of everything, where everything is tested, tabulated and 

 rubricated. And the result is patent in the wonderfully 

 improved condition of Agriculture. 



However, there is one point still to be mentioned, strongly 

 in favour of Germany, which in a manner embraces all 

 the subsidiary items enumerated. German Governments 

 had throughout a " National Agricultural Policy," whereas 

 we had none. " We have no national agricultural policy," 

 that is what Lord Selborne is reported to have said in 

 the course of his address to a meeting of farmers at Lincoln 

 on July 9, 1 916. And at that very moment he was 

 manfully labouring to remove that blot, evidently with 

 a more or less clear view before him of what it became 

 his Department to aim at. So hopeful a sign, such as we had 

 waited for in vain for twenty-seven years, made one seri- 

 ously regret the noble lord's early retirement from his office. 

 It was not only his deputing Mr. jMiddleton to prepare this 

 Report about Germany which warrants the opinion just 

 given expression to, that Lord Selborne saw his selected 

 goal clear before him. But that was one proof. For 

 diagnosis is the first step towards cure. Fate has dealt 

 kindly with the country in devising the official inheritance 

 to Mr. Prothero, the first homme du metier appointed to 

 the office. A state of war is not a time in which to unfold 

 a settled plan of permanent policy. It is a time for quickness 

 of eye, understanding of situations and prompt resolves. 

 And of these qualities Mr. Prothero has shown himself 

 fully possessed. What he has done in ]\Iaulden — avowedly 

 as a means of showing the Government what in its own 

 turn it might do (far in advance of Lord Chaplin's abortive 

 policy of 1892) on a much larger scale towards the creation 

 of successful small holdings — his obiter dictum anent the 

 high value of potatoes as a most utilisable agricultural 

 crop, and his vigorous encouragement of the employment 

 of labour-saving machinery, when labour was scarcely to 

 be had — are calculated to prepare one for something solid 

 and promising in the nature of a national policy, which 



