A LAND POLICY 



III 



is only 13,400,000. It is clear that if our land 

 resources are to be at all adequately developed, 

 we must have more cultivators of the soil. 



I shall deal first with the question of the unofficial 

 or semi-official organisation. 



At the present moment there is no all-embracing 

 organisation of agriculturalists, such as exists in 

 other countries. We have our Royal Agricultural 

 Society, which exists chiefly to hold agricultural 



No. 26. Land and Labour 



The number of persons enga.ged on looo acres of 

 arable land is 83, as against 16 employed on 1000 

 acres of pasture. 



shows. We have our Chambers of Agriculture and 

 our National Farmers' Union, both doing excellent 

 work in their own spheres. But in the main they 

 are representatives of the large farmers and not 

 of the small. Altogether it is doubtful if more than 

 50,000 farmers all told belong to these societies — 

 the remainder are unattached to any society. Yet 

 it is essential that all our farmers, or at all events 

 by far the larger majority of them, should belong 

 to a great voluntary organisation. Only by this 

 means can agricultural opinion as a whole find 

 expression ; only by this means can the agricultural 

 interests hope to receive due consideration in the 

 Councils of the Nation. 



