Conclusion. 117 



over such farms or estates and farm the land for the 

 community. The committees must accept the responsi- 

 biUty for carrying out the policy they are prepared to 

 enforce upon the farmers. 



The industry should be made to stand upon its own feet 

 without protection from foreign competition or guarantee 

 of prices. So far as we can see that will mean a very 

 severe test for the industry on the productive side and if 

 the present organisation of the industry is retained, it may 

 be that it will not be able to maintain cultivation on the 

 world prices ruling. There is no good reason why we 

 should maintain the present organisation of the industry, 

 if it can be shown that by working with larger units we 

 can produce more efficiently and economically. We have 

 not enough data meantime to enable us to say what is 

 the best unit for productive purposes, and we ought to 

 experiment with large scale farms, and at the same time 

 work steadily to discover costs of production in the 

 industry as a whole. The large scale farms should be 

 organised under the agricultural departments and 

 committees. 



I reject the idea that the industry can develop best under 

 a system of small holdings, both from the point of view of 

 production and the social effects on the workers. There 

 will always be room for small holdings in special districts 

 and in certain forms of production, but these can never be 

 more than minor incidents in the general agricultural 

 policy of the country. The great bulk of the land in a 

 complex civilised community such as ours, maintaining a 

 large manufacturing population, will give the best return 



