VALUE OF A RURAL POPULATION 15 



proper task, and which adds to the financial stability 

 of the nation in a manner the Navy cannot do. 



It is no final answer to the proposition submitted for 

 consideration to say that experience has proved that it 

 is cheaper for a nation in our position to buy its food 

 in the open market and pay for it with manufactures. 

 All questions of cheapness are relative. It would be 

 cheaper to dispense with the Navy and Army if we 

 could ensure peace ; but as that is impossible we accept 

 the burden of maintaining the Services, and the question 

 we have to consider is whether an enhanced agricul- 

 tural output, such as can be attained at some price or 

 other, may not be a part of the national defence so 

 necessary that it has to be paid for, cheaply or other- 

 wise. The answer turns on the degree of necessity and 

 the degree of cheapness, for we have learnt that the 

 market may not be always open and will become a 

 very dear one just at the time when it is most imperative 

 to confine our expenditure within our own dominions. 



Moreover, there is a social side to the question that 

 of the effect of their occupation upon the character of our 

 people. A population dependent entirely upon manufac- 

 tures gives rise to an unstable State, subject to compara- 

 tively violent fluctuations of employment from causes 

 which are liable to affect all industries simultaneously ; 

 an agricultural community alongside the industrial one 

 serves as a reservoir for labour, absorbing the fluc- 

 tuations because its own variations depend upon 

 different factors, and so equalizing the demand. 

 Politically a country population is the more sober and 

 cautious because it is in touch with certain fundamental 

 aspects of existence that are hidden aw r ay from the 

 purely town dwellers. No one concerned with the ulti- 



