CHAPTER IX 



THE OBJECTIVE IN PRODUCTION AND 

 FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS 



IT is hard to say what the future has in store, but 

 one thing is quite clear — and that is, that radical 

 alterations will have to be made in our land system 

 and in our methods of cropping.^ 



If landowners and tenant farmers are wise in their 

 generation they will not only recognize this, but will take 

 an active part in initiating the essential alterations. 



If the present owners and occupiers are reactionary, 

 and oppose all change, there is danger that the mass of 

 our countrymen will condemn the present land system 

 as so hopeless that it cannot be mended, and they will 

 lend a ready ear to suggestions for nationalization ; 

 although it should be self-evident that nationalization 

 in itself cannot alter the character or capacity of our 

 cultivators. Or if the idea finally takes hold that the 

 agricultural labourer should succeed the farmer as the 

 manager of land, working in some way under the State 

 instead of under the individual owner, surely it should 

 be apparent to anyone who gives the question a moment's 

 thought that, for such a system to be successful, the 

 labourer must be educated and trained to become an 

 efllcient manager of land ? 



' See Appendix No. VI wliich gives the report of a short speech 

 made by Lord Selborne when he look the Chair at my lecture to 

 the I^ndon School of Economics, March lo, 1916. 



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