184 BRITAIN FOR THE BRITON 



liis point between the weak plates of the armour that should 

 guard British agriculture. The apathy of the masses, born of 

 the grossest ignorance of the A B C of the momentous 

 agricultural question ; the bewilderment of the middle-classes in 

 respect to even the simplest problem which rotates round this 

 great subject; the supreme indifference of "cultured society," 

 the vested interest of the landed-classes, the insiucerity of 

 political parties, and the timidity of governments, render the 

 explanation of this matter — which is really of the simplest 

 nature — and the hringing of it home to the realisation of the 

 people, as difficult as the task of Sisyphus. Then the com- 

 mercial organisations, the Free Traders, the Manchester School, 

 and all who have something to lose, or fancy they have, by 

 the establishment of a universal system of agriculture in Great 

 Britain, increase the difficulties by the dissemination of their 

 particularly interested views, while the general confusion is 

 added to by " economists," " scientists," and a host of others 

 who rush in to trot out their particular hobbies. 



Haeji Done by Well-Meaning Enthuslvsts 



These well-meaning enthusiasts call to their aid all the 

 theorems of economics and masses of figures in proof of the 

 contention that it is cheaper for Great Britain to import her 

 corn from foreign countries than to grow it herself by the 

 labour of her own people, but this is dealing in deductive logic 

 rather than with hard practical facts. They entirely overlook 

 the cardinal fact that, in not cultivating our fields we are, in 

 the first place, disobeying one of Nature's fundamental laws, 

 and that those who disobey Nature cannot escape with impunity, 

 and in the second, that in leaving our fields waste we are 

 acting contrary to tlie recognised custom of every country in 

 the world. It is nattiral for man to cultivate his land to its 

 utmost productiveness, and unnatural to allow this greatest of 

 all wealth-producers to remain idle and unproductive, or, to 

 devote his genius and enterprise solely to the development of 

 numufacturing industries. If this were not so those economists 

 who favour the present wasteful system would be able to point 

 to many nations, right down the long vista of the ages, which 

 had become great and abidingly prosperous by sacrificing their 

 agriculture to other pursuits. Is there a single instance of this 

 on record ? History supplies the answer. 



Xor can they cite the British Empire as a case in point, 

 because there is too much evidence on every side in proof of 

 our prosperity not being abiding; that other nations have 

 wrested and are wresting much of our trade from us in the 



