OPENINGS FOR TRAINED MEN 49 



Ultimately the wages that can be paid must be limited 

 by the prices of agricultural produce ; but whatever 

 these conditions may be in the future, it is on the large 

 farm that production will be cheapest. The agricultural 

 industry cannot continue to depend upon the existence 

 of a wage standard much below that attainable else- 

 where. It is not to the national interest that it should 

 do so ; the present ignorance and lack of independence 

 of the rural labourer arise ultimately from his poverty 

 and weaken the fibre of our population. 



On the other hand, the existence of a graded system of 

 managers and under-managers upon large farms would 

 provide openings for young men of trained intelligence 

 but without capital. Our great industries and commercial 

 enterprises are staffed by such men, who have come in 

 at the bottom and proved their value. One reason for 

 the decline of agriculture in Great Britain has been that 

 it has been deprived of men of this type. Few men with- 

 out capital of their own can make a start in farming, 

 and a large number of the young men trained in our 

 agricultural colleges, many of them possessed of 

 capacity out of the common but who have no family 

 farm to go back to, must obtain administrative or 

 teaching posts or go abroad in order to find adequate 

 employment. The agricultural colleges are often 

 reproached because of the small proportion of their 

 students who are to be found afterwards engaged in 

 farming ; but this simply arises from the fact that the 

 majority of their students are not sons of farmers nor do 

 they possess any capital beyond their education, and the 

 conditions of agriculture prevailing in England afford 

 them no opportunity of entering upon a business career. 

 No industry can continue to prosper unless it is 



