190 BRITAIN FOR THE BRITON 



In the consideration of this subject, which is vastly more 

 important to the nation than any other question of the times, 

 the sound advice and the earnest pleas of the authorities 

 referred to should not be lightly put aside as of no value in 

 the economy of individual lives, because it will surely dawn 

 on the national intelligence — sooner or later — that, in spite of 

 past apathy and present ignorance and indifference, this much 

 despised, or at least misunderstood, agricultural question will 

 after all furnish the key to practically all that is wrong in the 

 national life. 



It will be found that although Protection, Tariff lieform. 

 Labour struggles, and Socialists' efforts, and the rest of the 

 political and economic influences that are disturbing the people 

 so much to-day, may do something to lessen congestion and 

 alleviate distress, it is the land — agriculture and all that it 

 holds in its wide embrace — that must eventually strike the 

 dominant note in social, economic, and political questions. 



The people are heirs to a vast inheritance, and it is through 

 the land that they will enter into their great possessions. 



" The stars come nightly to the sky ; 

 The tidal wave unto the sea ; 

 Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high, 

 Can keep my own away from me." 



