188 THE LAND AND ITS PROBLEMS 



we are to consolidate the Empire and if we are to 

 develop it and retain it for the English-speaking race. 



Without the needed policy we shall suffer each year 

 an ever-increasing loss, and — it is not putting it too 

 strongly — we shall imperil the very future of the Empire. 

 And to give effect to such an economic policy I maintain 

 that some form of Conservation and Development Board 

 is essential. It is impossible to work effectively through 

 the medium of half a dozen different departments. 



The guiding principle of this economic policy must 

 be the need of developing the rural side of our 

 civilisation. 



The great mistake of the past century has been that 

 all attention was concentrated on urban development ; 

 our civiHzation was based upon industrialism, and upon a 

 school of economy as hard and inhuman as the metal 

 machinery which made the industrial development 

 possible, and brought in its train overcrowding in our 

 towns, with their congested slums and high per- 

 centage of unemployment and families living on the 

 verge of starvation ! 



These are not achievements to be proud of, if regarded 

 impartially, and all the time with the millions and millions 

 of acres of undeveloped land lying under smiling skies 

 and calling aloud for cultivators ! And we must not 

 think solely of the material side, of the importance of 

 increasing primary wealth ; there is the mental and 

 moral side as well. 



The value of living on and by the land is great in 

 the building up of character, and in giving soundness of 

 judgment. 



The most healthy hfe for the human being, bodily, 

 mentally and spiritually, is the hfe on the land under 

 the direct influence of Nature ; all else is, in a greater 



