SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 129 



of agricultural development. This raises the difficulty 

 that the benefits conferred by the State would in time 

 be passed on to the landowners in the form of increased 

 rent. The only final solution of this difficulty is for the 

 State to become the ultimate landowner. 



7. The problems of finding employment and attract- 

 ing men to the land that will press at the close of the 

 war can be met, in the first place, by giving a bounty 

 on arable farming by guaranteeing either a minimum 

 price for wheat or an annual payment for each addi- 

 tional acre put under the plough. This will give farmers 

 confidence and secure an immediate extension of the 

 arable area with a corresponding increase of employ- 

 ment. As a quid pro quo the State should fix a minimum 

 wage for labourers. Preparations should also be made 

 at once for a programme of reclamation of waste land, 

 which would find employment for large numbers of 

 men temporarily and for a proportion of them per- 

 manently. 



7. A limited number of large industrial farms and of 

 co-operative colonies of small holders should be estab- 

 lished in order to test their relative values for dealing 

 with the land intensively and to provide trustworthy 

 data on which the future land policy of the country 

 could be framed. 



I may finally be allowed to urge that these proposals 

 are not put forward in the interests of the agricultural 

 classes as such, nor in those of any particular party 

 within the nation. It is no part of my purpose to push 

 the claims of an agrarian party pursuing its own ends 

 under the cloak of the national welfare. I doubt if such 

 a party has ever existed in this country, however much 

 individuals may have been clamorous for the protection 



