SS Agriculture and the Community. 



to the " Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of 

 England " (Vol. 80, 1919) entitled " Prices of Farm 

 Produce and Wages of Farm Workers." 



The second argument advanced is that the guarantees 

 are necessary to give confidence to the farmers in a time 

 of transition. If the guarantees were meant to be 

 temporary this argument would have the virtue of honesty 

 whatever our opinion of its merits might be, but the 

 demand has been for a permanent guarantee, and the 

 Agriculture Act was passed on that basis. The logic of 

 the argument is that the farmers have no confidence in 

 tillage in this country unless backed by the taxpayer, and 

 the situation has to be considered in the light of that 

 confession of lack of faith on the part of the farmers. 



At any other time it would not have been possible to 

 have imposed such a policy on the country. In the welter 

 and confusion of war-made policies, strange things have 

 happened which only the war-time atmosphere has made 

 possible. But that private traders should be left free to 

 pursue their own interests, and to secure their profits 

 when the industry allows them, and then fall back on the 

 State to shoulder the losses, is a method of conducting 

 industry that no community in normal times will tolerate. 

 Nor do I find that farmers with any pretensions to breadth 

 of outlook have any more confidence in the future because 

 of the guaranteed policy. Apart from the fact that they 

 have no belief that the guarantees in themselves will 

 achieve their avowed purpose they realise that a policy 

 dependent on the exigencies of party political warfare, in 

 a country that is bound to remain predominantly indus- 

 trial, with a large population averse to such a policy, is 



