9^ Agriculture and the Community;. 



of more capital for permanent equipment and greater 

 security to the farmers who are prepared to make a fuller 

 use of the land, we may reasonably expect to increase 

 home production. I do not think, however, that it is a 

 wise policy to place all the emphasis on wheat production, 

 as has been done during the past two years. That w^as 

 a natural result of war conditions, and grew out of the 

 emergency created by the submarine danger. We were 

 compelled to concentrate on the home production of bread 

 stuffs, and to secure an increase at any cost. Any attempt 

 to continue that policy under peace conditons and with 

 open seas could not be maintained in a manufacturing 

 nation, and the longer it is continued the more harmful 

 will the effect be on agriculture in the long run. The 

 industry should not be stimulated to develop in a direction 

 which requires subsidies, but should be encouraged to find 

 the directions in which the best returns on the capital and 

 labour employed in it can be secured without the aid of 

 guarantees or subsidies. 



It is exceedingly difficult to estimate what permanent 

 effects the upheaval caused by the war will have on the 

 world prices of foodstuffs. Before the war prices were 

 steadily rising, and the farming industry, as I have shown 

 in previous pages, was feeling the effects of the improved 

 prices and responding slowly. There is reasonable ground 

 to believe that when world conditions become more settled 

 the pressure of population on the available sources of food 

 supply will somewhat reverse the tendency of the second 

 half of the nineteenth century. The exploitaton of virgin 

 soils for wheat growing is not likely to compete so seriously 

 against the intensive agriculture of this country, and we 



