112 BRITAIN FOR THE BRITON 



producing neither food for, nor affording employment to, any 

 member of the household. If we do cultivate it, it yields its 

 constant supplies of spring onions, radishes, cabbages, and 

 potatoes, and affords lucrative employment for at least one 

 member of the family during his spare hours. 



Cannot we be brought to realise that if we do not cultivate 

 our fields, those thousands and millions of fertile fields which 

 are now lying broadcast but sterile over the length and breadth 

 of the country, or at all events, producing nothing but grass, 

 we shall neither produce food for, nor afford employment to, 

 the people ? 



It is estimated by the most competent authorities that 

 the agricultural industry of this country employs, supports 

 and feeds about 5,000,000 of people, and that if our fields 

 were cultivated, as they are in Germany or France, they would 

 employ, support and feed from 12,000,000 to 16,000,000 of 

 the population. 



Does it not then become startlingly clear that if our land 

 industry provides for but 5,000,000 of our people, when it 

 ought to provide for, say, 14,000,000, something abnormal 

 must happen ? 



No Employment. People must Emigrate or Starve 



Does it not also become apparent that these millions which 

 the great land industry ought to absorb, but does not, must 

 necessarily be thrown back upon the remaining forms of 

 occupations — the trades, professions, manufacturing and other 

 industries ; and does it not follow in logical sequence that if 

 these other occupations cannot absorb and find work for these 

 millions let loose from agriculture they must either emigrate 

 or — starve ? 



That they do both is proved by the statement of emigration 

 and pauperism just referred to, while it is beyond dispute that 

 the primum mobile of the fierce propaganda of modern fSocialism 

 is to be found in the unemployment, degradation and misery 

 of the people. 



And yet, in spite of all these things ; in spite of the vast 

 array of facts and arguments in favour of the people " coming 

 into their own"— the land and all that it yields, all that it 

 means to them and theirs ; in spite of the deadly peril there 

 is to the country in this everlasting unemployed question and 

 the eternal discontent that proceeds therefrom ; in spite of 

 the ever present menace to the commonweal, which springs 

 out of that political unrest born of the wrongs of a nation : 

 the 'people's interests remain neglected. 



