WHAT OF THE HARVEST? 327 



farmers arc locking up their available capital in the forced 

 purchase of farms they will have less capital to develop them. 

 Both Mr. Lloyd George and Lord Lee have uttered economic 

 puerilities in trying to scare the public into the belief that 

 our adverse exchange is due to the British farmer not growing 

 quite so much wheat. As long as the British Government 

 are permitted to borrow from day to day from international 

 financiers in the City, instead of taxing them, so long will 

 British credit suffer ; and it will continue to suffer if labour is 

 diverted from the highly productive industries such as ship- 

 building, to plough the unprofitable field, for to pursue that 

 policy, as opposed to arable dairying, is to plough the sands. 



The Government, as usual, had but one panacea high 

 prices ; and in spite of the fact that farmers had again 

 and again in giving evidence declared that guaranteed prices 

 were of little avail without security of tenure, refused to 

 allow a discussion on that point. Thus the Commission 

 which would have attempted to outline a real agricultural 

 policy of lasting benefit to the country was suddenly brought 

 to a close by the ukase of Lord Lee. 



Perhaps it was not to be wondered at that the Govern- 

 ment should view with disquietude the findings of a Commis- 

 sion on which it was plain to all who read the Evidence, that 

 after the dangerous rock of guaranteed prices had been 

 passed the opposing elements of fanner and labourer were 

 coalescing. 



We have seen that farm labourers have been rapidly becom- 

 ing one of the best organised crafts in the country; but farmers 

 have not been behindhand either, and the National Farmers' 

 Union now numbers some 100,000 members. Are labourers, 

 now that they are so well organised, more antagonistic to 

 farmers than they were in the 'seventies or 'eighties ? To 

 this I would answer unhesitatingly, that the antagonism 

 has moved to a higher plane. It is less bitter ; less personal. 

 In Arch's time the farmers were unorganised, and the men 

 regarded their masters as personally responsible for the undue 

 hardships, the unjustifiably long hours and low wages which 

 were their lot in life. Masters and men never met in con- 

 ference. They never thrashed out things together. Now 



