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The history of ancient and modern states is the surest 

 proof of what form is best for earthly kingdoms. Looking 

 back at the early world we see what remains to us of 

 its numerous nationalities and civilizations. We see that 

 from these only Egypt, China and India have remained, 

 and we ask ourselves why have these not also disap- 

 peared ? 



The answer to this question is that these states were 

 and are to the present day exclusively agricultural. Egypt 

 furnishes perhaps the most striking example. By its very 

 conditions this is a state which can only devote itself to 

 the culture of the land. Inundated every year by the ris- 

 ing Nile its southern uplands are covered with rich 

 deposits and grow incomparable crops. Other occupations 

 may serve as helps but farming must always be the se- 

 cret of its wealth and welfare. Even from the Bible we 

 know that wherever and whenever crops may fail Egypt 

 is an inexhaustible resource, and it is this natural rich- 

 ness of its soil which from the dawn of histoty attracts 

 the envy and avarice of less favoured countries: it is this 

 which accounts for those invasions which Egypt has 

 undergone. And what came of these invasions after 

 all? The conquerors have vanished from the scene but the 

 country has remained itself, and the same fellahs who 

 laboured under Pharaoh labour now, invincible not from 

 might in war nor from power of mind, but thanks to 

 simple devotion to their mother earth. 



In the Indian and Chinese states we see the same. 

 Agriculture is the source of their prosperity and their 

 wealth. 



Glance from these to the titanic shadows of the grand 

 military empires of the past. Where is their substance? 

 Whilst her gardens bloomed Persia was great, but when 

 ;she turned from the culture of plants to the slaughter of 

 men, when in a word she became a military empire, she 

 withered and vanished away. While Rome too, was the 

 owner of her own land her might was solid and unshake- 

 able, but later on latifundix pardidere Italiam! The 



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