VI 



PREFACE 



the land as essential to the security of the Nation as a 

 whole, and independent of the particular interests of 

 either landowners or farmers. 



Some of my friends will consider that I have been 

 unjust to the farmers of the country, and will refuse to 

 accept my assurance that they are among the minority 

 whose standard of work I desire to see universal. But 

 I am not out to award either praise or blame ; I want 

 to arrive at the facts and ensure their examination 

 from the point of view of the national needs. A man 

 may be a first-rate farmer as regards his own personal 

 success and yet be pursuing a policy inimical to the 

 ultimate welfare of the State. Before one attaches 

 any blame to the current race of farmers one must 

 consider the extraordinary crisis through which they 

 have passed in the last thirty years without any 

 attention or assistance from the State, then one will be 

 more inclined to praise them for having contrived to 

 remain in existence at all. 



I have to thank many friends for assistance in the 

 preparation of these pages, either in the shape of infor- 

 mation or of criticism. In particular I would wish to 

 mention my colleague, Mr. Vaughan Nash, C.B., 

 C.V.O., Professor W. G. S. Adams and Mr. C. S. 

 Orwin of Oxford, Professor T. B. Wood and Mr. K. J. J. 

 Mackenzie of Cambridge, Mr. C. W. Fielding, Mr. Harold 

 Faber, Danish Commissioner, and Mr. S. Stagg of the 

 Development Commission, who has given me great 

 assistance in reviewing the statistical figures quoted. 



A. D. Hall. 



February, 1916. 



