THE STATE AS FARMER 13 



application for its wares. The reader may 

 take it as a certainty that we cannot get 

 good butter and milk by law. All we can 

 do is, perhaps, to prevent bad and poisonous 

 samples being sold as good. Good things 

 can only be made by those who desire to 

 make them. We have, therefore, to establish 

 a common purpose in one area — an object 

 against which that farmer offends when he 

 waters his milk or feeds his cows ill. I need 

 not say that under the new system the State 

 will make short work of the farmer who thus 

 sins against his fellows : he will have to go. 



The second of my reasons for putting butter 

 early on my list of dairy products is that 

 it is almost as universally needed as milk 

 itself, and unless it be made in this way out 

 of surplus milk it cannot be made at a profit 

 at all. The Englishman is entitled, I think, 

 to butter from his own dairies even if it be 

 not that item from which the most profit is 

 secured. The point is this : Whole-milk 

 pays every district best because, from the 

 nature of the case, a better comparative price 

 can be exacted for it than for the butters 

 and cheeses which have competitors from 



