CONCLUSION 



However disappointing may have been the comparative 

 breakdown of our Agriculture in the past, as pubhc opinion 

 now stands, we are not hkely to allow such condition to 

 remain unremedied, so far as our powers go, in the future. 

 Awakened as we have been from our lethargy by the harsh 

 lessons of the war — and the threatened possibility of their 

 assuming an even graver shape — our interest in that in- 

 dispensable calling has, as Mr. Prothero remarked in one 

 of his first public utterances as President of the Board of 

 Agriculture, " come to stay," and come to be turned to 

 account for laying a foundation for better things. The 

 clash of arms being over and the last cannon shot having 

 spent its sound, it is indeed conceivable that, in the matter 

 of preparation for emergencies, we may once more, as we 

 have so often done in the past, relapse into our habitual 

 torpor, allowing our swords to rust, falling back into that 

 lazy trustfulness which, as I remember, made people on 

 the eve of the Crimean War remark mockingly that we had 

 made a verity of the Prayer-book response, " Because there 

 is none other that fighteth for us, but only Thou, oh God ! " 

 However, for the moment the whole Nation appears alive 

 to the demands of the newly-created situation at all points. 



We have roused ourselves from our long stupor, and pro- 

 fess ourselves as full of good resolutions for amendment as 

 is the proverbial child on New Year's Day. We are not 

 going to allow matters to rest as they are. We are revising 

 our educational apparatus. Let us hope that such revision 

 will extend to the point at which it is most sorely needed, 

 that is. Agriculture. We have discarded our contempt 

 for foreign banking methods, for which there is ample 



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