STATE FARMS 125 



to estimate their chances of success or failure and their 

 relative value as a means of bringing the land into a 

 higher pitch of cultivation and of providing a career 

 for the cultivators, whether as masters or men. More- 

 over, these ventures, if they do nothing else, will pro- 

 vide some definite concrete information as to costs of 

 production on land of different types and the returns 

 that labour, management and capital respectively 

 may expect. Who can say on how much land in the 

 country wheat will pay at 303., 353. and 403. respec- 

 tively ? At present figures are so scarce, so conditioned 

 by the personality of the farmer, that our arguments 

 are unsubstantial, our basis for State action too specu- 

 lative. We are faced by the broad fact that the present 

 occupiers of the land of the country consider that only 

 42 per cent, of the cultivated land of England and Wales 

 is fit for arable cultivation. The statesman who regards 

 such a result of leaving matters to private enterprise 

 as a danger to the Nation must have more facts before 

 he or his representatives are in a position to say to 

 any individual : " Your way of dealing with the land 

 is mistaken ; you can make it yield so much more with 

 due profit to yourself ; if you do not make a move in 

 that direction we must in the general interests of the 

 nation remove you from the land." No one wants to use 

 compulsion now or to threaten the existing occupiers of 

 land, if for no other reason than that the State is not at 

 present in a position to replace them with anyone better. 

 But the implied threat must be there if the farmers do 

 not respond to the assistance and the opportunity 

 accorded to them. The State must have the arable 

 land and will prepare to obtain it in its own way. 

 Procedure of this kind under the stress of anything 



