14 THE ERRORS OF THE PAST 



industries have become over-capitalised, and, as 

 population follows capital, our towns have become 

 overcrowded. 



The reverse has been the case with the agricul- 

 tural industry. Owing to the lack of a National 

 Land Policy agriculture for many years has 

 suffered from want of capital, and even to-day, after 

 a series of fairly prosperous years, the capital per 

 acre invested in agriculture is, I think, about one- 

 half the average so invested in Continental coun- 

 tries. A working capital of about £7 an acre is 

 probably the average for the United Kingdom, 

 while on the Continent it varies from £12 to £15 

 per acre and even more. 



The natural consequence is that our industry of 

 food production has been steadily decaying. 



(i) Our Agricultural population is decreasing. 

 There are one million less labourers on the 

 land to-day than there were sixty years 

 ago. In other countries the agricultural 

 population has decreased relatively, but in 

 no other country in the world has the 

 agricultural population declined absolutely 

 as it has with us.^ 



(2) The production of our land is diminishing. 

 During the last sixty years 4,000,000 acres 

 of arable land have gone down to grass. 

 Even during 1914, in spite of the appeal 

 to farmers to increase their production, 

 10,000 acres were added to the already 

 uneconomic proportion of grass. 



Serious men at different times have noted the 

 phenomenon that our agriculture has not only 



^ The total number of males aged 15 years and upwards 

 engaged in agriculture in England and Wales at the date of the 



{Continued <?« / . 1 6. ) 



