Introdudion. 



THE following essay was written in the spring of 1921. 

 Its purpose is to trace the causes which have 

 operated to bring the agricultural industry to the 

 position we find it in to-day and to discuss a policy by 

 which the community will be able to make the industry 

 contribute its proper share to the public welfare. I make 

 no pretensions to any originality of treatment in analysing 

 the causes of the decay of agriculture, or to have produced 

 any new schemes of reform. I have purposely confined 

 myself to the criticisms of those who are recognised as 

 competent judges and have merely brought the criticisms 

 together and tried to make the deductions which the facts 

 warrant. The principal deduction I make is that the 

 present system of private ownership and control of land, 

 modified in some degree by legislation and administration, 

 and the private control and management of farming 

 operations for profit-making, have proved unable to make 

 adequate use of the national resources, and that the in- 

 dustry, if left to be the private speculation of landowners 

 and farmers, will tend to become less capable of supplying 

 the needs of the community. The policy I propose is that 

 the community should definitely make itself responsible 

 for the maintenance of a standard of control and manage- 

 ment of agricultural land, and for a standard of cultivation, 

 and should set up the necessary machinery for enforcing 

 these standards, taking over land and arranging for 

 farming on its own responsibility. 



vii. 



