102 BRITAIN FOR THE BRITON 



distress, wherein Government aid on a liberal scale has been 

 found necessary to save people from starving, and private 

 charities have been sorely taxed to help the helpless ? 



No Intention to minimise Industrial Importance 



Nobody despises our trades and manufactures, nor has the 

 writer the slightest intention of under-estimating their enormous 

 value as highly important and essential factors in the common- 

 weal ; indeed, it must be admitted that they are as essential to 

 our welfare as the sun's influence is to the planet on which we 

 live. But here we must draw a firm line of demarcation. Trade 

 and industries are certainly among the highest essentials to our 

 existence as a great nation ; but they are not the only ones. 

 If we trust entirely to them we fail, as we have seen, and we 

 must not fail any longer. We must supplement these means 

 of wealth, greatness, and prosperity by other and surer means 

 that are not subject to outside influences, and that will afford 

 unfailing employment to all who adopt them, quite irrespective 

 of market fluctuations and trade depressions. 



These means are to be found in the land, and only in the 

 land. The land in every country but our own forms the staple 

 industry, and constitutes the chief means of employment, with 

 the result, in every case, that there is no such thing as wide- 

 spread poverty and a huge mass of pauperism, as we know it. 



Do not let us pass by this obvious fact without considering 

 what it means, for upon it hangs the welfare of the British 

 nation. 



We are, generally speaking, an untravelled people and a 

 busy people. If we go abroad for our short summer holidays, 

 we go for pleasure, and do not bother ourselves about the 

 institutions of the country we travel in, or its trade, industries, 

 or constitution. If we go to Belgium, for example, we are 

 more interested in the splendid Palais de Justice at Brussels, 

 and the weird collection of paintings at the Musee Wiertz, 

 than in the wonderful agricultural system of the country. 



But when observation becomes necessary and comparison 

 essential in national interests, we must no longer ignore, as 

 of no moment, what other nations have felt constrained to do 

 in the common interests of the people ; if we do, we shall 

 become wilfully negligent. 



Europe recognises Necessity for Up-to-date Agriculture 



There is not a country in Europe but has recognised long 

 ago that the highest form of universal agriculture is as essential 



