CAN WE PRODUCE MORE ? 107 



by anyone except the people who are perfectly 

 satisfied with things as they are. We certainly 

 look as if we intended to produce much more, for 

 there is an enormous machinery running with the 

 object of raising our annual output : the Board of 

 Agriculture, a large number of agricultural colleges 

 and experiment stations, farm schools, agricultural 

 organisers, farming papers, a huge literature, schemes 

 for improving the breeds of cows with a high 

 milk yield, of pigs, poultry, and even a feeble 

 attempt to provide the small producer with credit 

 by means of village credit banks. In addition the 

 scientist is ever at work to discover means for the 

 destruction of plant, fungus and insect pests, and 

 so reduce the loss caused by them ; and the engineer 

 isfor ever planning to improve still further existing 

 farming machinery and implements. 



Yet, in spite of it all there is no increase, but 

 rather a decline in our output. The reason is, as I 

 have shown, our narrow and cramped outlook. 

 It is true that the nation's uneasy conscience or 

 its groping instinct has given us many agencies 

 for improving the conditions of agriculture, but 

 each agency is tinkering away at its own little 

 problems without producing the least effect, as our 

 annual statistics prove, upon the main problem, 

 which is : How to put the entire farming industry, 

 production, distribution, and the supply of adequate 

 working capital, upon a sound business basis. 



Our industry of food production, it will be agreed, 

 is a privileged industry. It stands in a class by 

 itself because it is our one vital industry. Food is 

 the one essential of life — and the main essential of 

 War. That is why it is imperative for us to find out 

 at once where we stand. Wc must know how much 



