182 BRITAIN FOR THE BRITON 



from being over-populated, the fields of Britain are starved of human 

 labour as James Caird used to say. The British nation does not 

 work on her soil ; she is pre\'ented from doing so, and the would-be 

 economists complain that the soil will not nourish its inhabitants ! " * 



" The most striking fact is, however, that in some undoubtedly 

 fertile parts of the country things are even in a worse condition. 

 My heart simply ached when I saw the state in which the land is 

 kept in South Devon, and when I learned to know what ' permanent 

 pasture ' means. Field after field is covered with nothing but grass, 

 three inches high, and thistles in profusion." t 



" The Frenchman cultivates much that is left here under 

 permanent pasture — and this is what is described as his ' inferiority ' 

 in agriculture. . . . 



" He imports, in an average year, but one-tenth only of what 

 the nation consumes, and he exports to this country considerable 

 quantities of food produce (£10,00C,000 worth), not only from the 

 South, but also and especially, from the shores of the Channel 

 (Brittany butter and vegetables ; fruit and vegetables from the 

 suburbs of Paris, and so on)." J 



"As to the comparison with Belgium, it is even more striking — 

 the more so as the two systems of culture are similar in both 

 countries. . . . The area given to wheat is five times as big as 

 Great Britain." § 



" The soil of Belgium supplies with home-grown food no less 

 than 490 inhabitants per square milp, and there remains something 

 for export — no less than £1,000,000 worth of agricultural produce 

 being exported every year to Great BritMin." || 



United Kingdom can Feed 80,000,000 of People 



" If the soil of the United Kingdom were cultivated only as it 

 tvas thirty-five years ago, 24,000,000 people, instead of 17,000,000, 

 could live on home-grown food, and that culture, while giving 

 occupation to an additional 750,000 men, would give nearly 

 3,000,000 wealthy home customers to the British manufactures. 

 If the cultivable area of the United Kingdom were cultivated as 

 the soil is cultivated on the average in Belgium, the United 

 Kingdom would have food for at least ;)7,000,000 inhabitants ; 

 and it might export agricultural produce without ceasing to 

 manufacture so as freely to supply all the needs of a wealthy 

 population. And finally, if the population of this country came 

 to be doubled, all that would be recjuired for producing the food 

 for 80,000,000 inhabitants would be to cultivate the soil as it 

 is cultivated in the best farms of this country, in Lombardy, and 

 in Flanders, and to utilise some meadows, which at present lie 



* " Fields, Factories and Workshops," pp. 40, 47. Prince Kropotkin. 



+ Ihid., pp. 48, 49. J lUd., p. 54. 



§ Ibid., p. 55. II Ibid., pp. 57, 58. 



