40 Hoiv to Pax for the War 



equal with the President of the Board of Trade, as asked 

 for in our issue of June, 1917, p. 93. Such a Minister to 

 be responsible for keeping satisfied the Empire's require- 

 ments of such food by arranging for the utilization, drain- 

 age, and opening up of such lands as are known to be 

 suitable for the crops named, but which lands cannot be 

 " broken," drained, and " licked into shape " by small 

 private owners. To-day we must encourage the small 

 owner and discourage the large men. This is done by 

 setting up central collecting stations and financing, thresh- 

 ing, storing, and selling the wheat on a co-operative basis. 

 Mr. Wilson-Fox, Mr. Fisher and others will, I believe, 

 agree that we are one on these points. If so, all the better, 

 and let us get ahead on them, as well as on organizing the 

 fisheries off our coasts and those of our Allies, not forgetting 

 the West Indies and off Brazil, to which I drew the atten- 

 tion of Sir George Doughty and others years ago, and 

 they did not even answer my letters. But do not talk of 

 ,^50,000,000 a year or even half that amount as an annual 

 income from palm products, and, above all, please suppress 

 the little joke of two million tons of sugar from British 

 Guiana, unless you do not mean to start paying for the 

 War until long after this generation has gone to join those 

 who have fallen for the Empire in their last long sleep. 



>p, ;|; :^t -^ 



Our best thanks are due to Mr. Wilson-Fox for what he 

 is doing, and it is a pity that many others who are so busy 

 " gassing about " all that they would, and could do, do not 

 come forward and give us the benefit of their views as 

 Mr. Wilson-Fox has done. Absence of competition and 

 lack of criticism are the worse enemies that progress has 

 to contend with, and the absence of rival schemes to those 

 put forward on the occasions mentioned is greatly to be 

 regretted at this somewhat critical stage in the prosperity 

 and the development of the latent resources of the Empire. 

 I say that the absence of rival schemes is to be regretted 

 because, although we want hustlers like the member for 

 Tamworth, I do not favour some of the definite propositions 

 he has made, and I like still less (or dread still more) the 

 rumours in the air, that tend to increase in number, of 

 eliminating as far as possible (an ambiguous, and hence an 

 unsatisfying and somewhat dangerous term) the middlemen 

 between producers and consumers. This idea was some- 

 what modified by Mr. Bigland when addressing the 

 merchant members of the London Chamber of Commerce 

 on January 30 (1918). I believe that everyone who care- 



