FREE PLAY FOR FARMERS 11 



unknown before in our generation. Before the war it 

 would have been impossible to persuade a majority of 

 the nation that the people of the towns must pay 

 more for their food in order (as they would have put it) 

 that the people on the land might profit. This new 

 sense that agriculture must be supported is a tremendous 

 driving force. It is enough to enable agriculture to 

 conquer its ailments and carry its burdens with ease. 

 But we must recognise at once that it is not an incentive 

 which works among the very class upon whom every- 

 thing depends. 



It will be defeated, if we are not careful, by the 

 want of confidence in the farmers — want of confidence 

 in the business of growing wheat, which is the primary 

 food of man and the chief source of industrial energy. 

 The action of the State — as it is the purpose of the 

 following pages to show — is required to support the 

 incentive, and allow it free play among farmers. If 

 that object be achieved, the cost of the support will 

 probably be repaid several times and in several ways. 

 The farmer already knows his duty to the nation in 

 circumstances which were not foreseen a few years 

 ago. He does not want to shirk it ; but he cannot be 

 expected to enter upon what he thinks is a speculative 

 enterprise. In fine, it is not a cheap policy — and it 

 might be a ruinously expensive policy for the country 

 — to withhold from the labourer the conviction that the 

 land offers him a decent and agreeable livelihood, and 

 from the farmer the assurance that he is engaged in a 

 stable business capable of supporting properly paid 

 labour. 



Here in England we have a soil which is fertile, and 



