402 THE WAR AND AGRICULTURE 



stuffs next summer, people may have to eat oat cakes and barley 

 bread, but this would be but a trifling hardship after all. 



It may be said that the view I have expressed is unpatriotic, 

 but I maintain that the most patriotic line that farmers can take 

 is to farm well, and to get the utmost they can out of the land. 

 But you cannot go on farming at a loss, and any attempt to do so 

 must result in diminished returns. 



About a fortnight ago a leading London daily paper urged 

 farmers to increase their wheat area, and said that, if the doing 

 so resulted in a loss to growers, no doubt the townsman would 

 remember the patriotic efforts that farmers had made during the 

 war, and make it up to them later on. I have no confidence in 

 any belated gratitude. If the Government, on behalf of the 

 townsman, does not feel justified in holding out any inducement 

 in time of stress, there is small chance of your receiving it when 

 all danger (if any) has passed. 



In conclusion, I should like to say that I do not think that this 

 refusal by the Government has been actuated by party political 

 considerations. I know, moreover, that some of those members 

 of Parliament who sit on the Government side of the House are 

 ready to support the giving of a guarantee of a minimum price. 

 If the Government, after all, decides to give a satisfactory guaran- 

 tee, then I would recommend you to get in every acre of wheat 

 that is possible. 



After a discussion the following resolution was carried unanim- 

 ously : " This meeting is of opinion that if the Government 

 will undertake to guarantee a minimum price the wheat area of 

 the United Kingdom would be largely and permanently increased." 



This speech was very widely referred to in the Press, some 

 half-dozen papers giving a very fair summary, while some two 

 hundred others gave such extremely abbreviated extracts from 

 it that no one could possibly draw any conclusions from them. 

 This fact did not, however, prevent a number of individuals from 

 expressing their views, and were it not that the nation's welfare 

 rendered it so serious much amusement might have been drawn 

 from these would-be critics. 



The principal point in the argument was, (a) that without a 

 guarantee of a minimum price by the Government farmers would 

 be wise to follow the advice given by the Government (in their 

 answers quoted above) and " deal with their wheat crops this 

 year exactly as they would have done in normal circumstances," 

 but (b) in order to increase the home-grown food supply they 

 could increase the area of oats, barley, and potatoes. The critics 

 all attacked the advice given by (a) and entirely ignored (b) 

 This was due in some cases to a complete ignorance of all the con- 

 ditions that govern agriculture, in some cases to a mere desire 

 to make political capital out of the subject, and in others to the 

 very general inability to read simple English. Every practical 



