io8 DEPENDENCE OF ARABLE FARMING 



diminished both in numbers and purchasing power, 

 so that the price of wheat and meat will fall. 



Let prices be what they will, the uncertainty is 

 almost as bad for development as actual low prices ; 

 the British farmer, if he is to plough up grass land on any 

 considerable scale, must have some security as to the 

 basis on which he can conduct his business. 



Assuming, then, that the State decides to bring about 

 a greater production of food at home, it must begin 

 by either stabilizing the prices of agricultural produce, 

 or ensuring in other ways an adequate return to the 

 farmer, at any rate during the critical years while the 

 change is being made and men are being accustomed 

 to new methods. On the whole a system of bounties 

 on production seems to be preferable to one of duties 

 on imports; the country is surer of a return for its 

 outlay and knows exactly what its policy is costing, 

 and the consumer does not get the price put up artifi- 

 cially against him by the operations of a ring formed 

 behind the shelter of a tariff wall. One proposal is 

 that put forward by Lord Milner's Committee on Food 

 Production in 1915 — to fix a standard price for wheat 

 and to pay to the farmer for each quarter of market- 

 able corn the amount by which the average official 

 price for the year falls below the standard adopted. 

 The only new machinery required would be the attend- 

 ance on due notice of an excise officer or even a police- 

 man when threshing was taking place in order to register 

 the amount of head corn passing through the machine, 

 for which a certificate would be given to the farmer. 

 The farmer would preserve his certificates and claim 

 on them at the end of the year should the declared 

 average price of British corn for the year fall below the 



