6 BRITAIN FOR THE BRITON 



That this is the only interpretation of so obvious a condition 

 is proved by the fact that every country in the world, civilised 

 or uncivilised, and irrespective of colour, creed, or language, 

 regards its agriculture as of paramount importance in the 

 economy of national life. 



Ancient Agricultural Countries 



India, China, Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, and Japan — the last- 

 mentioned till quite recently — are types of purely agricultural 

 countries. It is true that they all possess certain internal 

 industries, besides agriculture, which supply their people with 

 such commodities, other than food, as are necessary to human 

 existence, but agriculture is the chief industry and the great 

 wealth-producer of all these countries. That these nations 

 have existed for countless generations and have increased and 

 multiplied, and have, moreover, subsisted chiefly on the " kindly 

 fruits of the earth," there is no question. 



It is equally true that to-day in savage and semi-savage 

 countries, many of which are included in our African and 

 Indian possessions, agriculture, albeit in its crudest form, con- 

 stitutes the principal industry of the people, and if bereft of 

 that one industry these backward races would soon die out. 



The more civilised States of Europe and the Western world 

 afford, even in these days of feverish commercialism which fills 

 civilised man with a consuming thirst for gold, still stronger 

 proof, if possible, of the enormous importance which one and 

 all of them attach to the maintenance of agriculture as the 

 chief industry of their respective countries, the main source of 

 national wealth, and the fulcrum upon which moves the lever 

 of all human enterprise. 



Agriculture in France 



France, for instance, waged a relentless war against the 

 feudal tyranny of the nobility for many long and weary years, 

 and her struggle for agricultural freedom culminated in the 

 bloody Eevolution of 1789. To-day, the Land rules the 

 situation in France. About 36,000,000 acres — or considerably 

 over one-fourth of the total area of the country — are under 

 corn crops, while 24,000,000 of her population — or nearly two- 

 thirds— are engaged upon, or subsist by, the great land industry. 

 She is self-supporting, or practically so, as regards her food 

 supply ; her huge national debt, much larger than our own, is 

 held chiefly by the agricultural classes, thereby assuring 

 national stability ; while the enormous war indemnity, exacted 



