268 BraTAIN FOR THE BlUTON 



How THEY SHOULD DEMAND IT 



If any of tlicso things happen; if a " lioyal Commission," 

 for example, be appointed to " Inquire into the practicabiHty 

 of establishing a universal system of agriculture in this country, 

 etc.," it is certain that this would be but " a sop to Cerberus," or 

 in other words, a shelving of the question for an indeHnite period. 

 Let the people beware of this ; let them make it clear to the 

 world that they are determined to have Land-IJeform of a real 

 abiding nature, of a nature that will convert those millions of 

 acres of our magnificently fertile lands — which, owing to the 

 trickery of politicians and others, are now lying waste — into 

 a vast source of employment and wealth : and that in the accom- 

 plishment of this purpose they will stand no nonsense. This 

 is the attitude, and the only attitude, that the people should 

 assume towards this vital question, and if they fail to adopt it 

 they will surely be worsted in the hght. 



The people must no longer ignore the important fact that 

 the only reason for the failure of British agriculture in all 

 these weary years is solely Ijecause they have been beguiled 

 into the belief that the question of whether we should cultivate 

 our fields or leave them lying waste is a subject for controversy. 

 Cobden and his manufacturer-reformers of the " forties " had 

 most excellent reasons for misleading the people. 



Agricultuke sacrificed to Class Interests 



" I am afraid that most of us entered upon the struggle with the 

 belief that we had some distinct class interest in the question," * 



said Cobden in a speech to his Manchester followers on 

 October 19, 1843, and so they had. Their interests in making 

 agriculture subservient to manufactures were precisely the 

 same as they are to-day. 



" For good or for evil, Great Britain has become dependent upon 

 imported wheat to the extent of more than 70 per cent, of her 

 consumption. Cheap food is essential to her industrial supremacy," f 



said a Free-trade economist in 1907, and in comparing the two 

 quotations it is clear they both spring from the same source — 

 Class Intej;est. Cobden fought for the manufacturing interest 

 in 1843, and in 1907 the author of " The Free-Trade Movement," 

 in declaring that cheap food is essential to industrial supremacy, 

 fights for exactly the same interest. 



Agriculture is too old, too world-wide, too well understood 



* "The Free-Trade Movement," p. G9. t Ibid., p. 1G9. 



