54 Agriculture and the Community. 



that there should be a larger number of people settled on 

 the land. It is acknowledged that the policy is one which 

 can only be pursued if the nation is prepared to subsidise 

 the establishment of small holders. The policy is justified 

 on social and political grounds and not for agricultural or 

 economic reasons. 



There will be general agreement that it is desirable to 

 increase the rural population. If the standard of living 

 is a reasonable one, and the opportunities for education 

 and social life are adequate, a rural population provides a 

 more stable element in the national life than the more 

 hectic conditions of life in the large industrial centres. But 

 the standard of living in the rural districts must depend 

 in the long run on the economic use made of the labour 

 of the people. The possibility of wider education and 

 deeper culture, as distinguished from the mere elementary 

 schooling to which we are apt to confine the term education, 

 depends on conditions of employment which permit of 

 adequate leisure. A real social life can only develop fully 

 in a community where the conditions of life permit of free 

 intercourse of men, women and young people with leisure 

 in which they can develop the arts and graces of life. All 

 small holding communities are overworked communities. 

 They can exist only by excessive labour of men, women 

 and children. Thrift becomes a vice because the petty 

 economies must be hourly observed. They emphasise the 

 meaner, more selfish aspects of human intercourse. The 

 members can never be free from the anxieties and worries 

 of people living near the margin, to whom losses, com- 

 paratively trifling from the point of view of the community, 

 may bring disaster. Under competitive conditions in this 



