68 Agriculture and the Community. 



cient basis for such future developments as experience 

 showed to be necessary. Without a definite policy the 

 Committees and Councils are likely to shrink into debating 

 societies merely, and become impotent to do any practical 

 work. 



Any attempt to lay down detailed constitutions for 

 administrative bodies would be premature. The nature 

 and extent of the administration necessary will depend on 

 the form of org-anisation the industry will take, and that 

 must be a matter of gradual development from the present 

 position. Certain general principles may however be 

 advanced. The central authority in each country ought 

 to be organised on somewhat different lines from those 

 presently existing. In England the Ministry of Agricul- 

 ture is controlled by a political chief who works through 

 a body of civil servants ; in Scotland there is a body of 

 civil servants who work under the control of the Secretary 

 for Scotland. Every matter of administration thus 

 becomes a political question, and has to be considered 

 primarily in all its political and party reactions rather 

 than from the point of view of the industry. In larger 

 questions of policy it is not possible or desirable to prevent 

 this, but the extent to which political issues dominate 

 policy is not good for the industry. So long as Parliament 

 concerned itself very little with the actual conduct of 

 industries, the method of entrusting administration to 

 political chiefs worked fairly well, but now that the State 

 is concerning itself so largely with the actual conduct of 

 most of the larger industries, and must do so to an even 

 greater extent in future, we have to find a method of 



