CONCLUSION. 495 



which is, to make the land produce as it should, will prevail 

 in the end. And whatever passing fancies may divert the 

 national mind for a time from the right path, whether it 

 decide once more to try to prop up bad farming by useless 

 and costly inflation of prices, to the detriment of all the 

 Nation — under the infallible teaching of experience ulti- 

 mately the right path will have to be struck out, and, instead 

 of paying money gladly, to keep prices above their natural 

 level, the Nation may be counted upon to decide that it 

 must have better farming — farming better in that it raises 

 more produce — and keeping the world at that peace which 

 we all profess to have at heart, that is, a peace in which there 

 will be no sense of just grievance left rankling in the heart 

 of any one nation as against another, such as necessarily 

 must grow up under fiscal differentiation, which means the 

 supposed good of one nation at the cost of another. We 

 have seen what German insistence upon tariff advantages 

 as against France, exacted under duress in 1871, has brought 

 about. There was war preparing while the enforced terms 

 remained in operation, and the bitter animosity so produced 

 helped to sharpen the weapons with which war was waged 

 when it actually came. If we will show that in advancing 

 the demands that we do upon our Agriculture for improve- 

 ment and regeneration we are in earnest, if we will with a 

 clear mind and a determined will set ourselves to correct 

 what is now amiss, gradually, if not at once, to secure the 

 full reward for his skill and labour and outlay for the tiller, 

 to educate our farmers as a class up to the proper point, so 

 as to enable them to farm scientifically, and furthermore 

 assist them with the use of the money which unquestionably 

 they require alike for permanent and for passing purposes ; 

 if we will take care that whatever land there is, is turned to 

 proper account, be it under crops or under trees, to ensure 

 that Labour is treated as it should be and the great gulf 

 which now severs the large host of rural workers from the 

 rest of the community is bridged over, and if we will see 

 that the land is without stint, according to the demand made, 

 placed at the command of Agricultural Labour — we shall 

 have, with our peculiar advantages, climatic, economic and 



