CALL FOR STATE INTERVENTION 9 



spectacle of farmers, for want of this very confidence, 

 refusing to cultivate the soil to anything like the fuU 

 extent of its known productive capacity, and there- 

 fore being unable to pay decent wages to their 

 labourers ? 



Judged on its merits here is a case, if ever there was 

 one, for an immediate act of State intervention. For 

 we cannot wait for the farmer gradually to find salva- 

 tion for himself, for his labourers, and for us who 

 depend upon the food he produces. If we do so we 

 shall miss the glorious opportunity of the disbanding 

 of the Army. Time is the most important element in 

 our problem. 



For generations it has been the hope of wise men 

 to redress the balance between the urban and rural 

 populations. But they did not see how to do it by 

 any means that would not be slow and laborious. 

 Now comes such an opportunity as a statesman might 

 have dreamed of in a moment of exuberant and 

 fanciful optimism. Many hundreds of thousands of 

 strong men, capable with their hands, and having a 

 disposition towards a life in the open, will certainly 

 turn their thoughts to the land if the conditions seem 

 to them to be good enough. They can be captured 

 for agriculture. But they must come as happy and 

 willing captives. They must, so to speak, be capti- 

 vated. They will not accept the old conditions. They 

 know too much about them. 



They have seen very small farmers in France and 



Flanders living happily on land which they own. 



They have talked to men from the British Dominions 



who have told them of high wages and of the ease 



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