"Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread." 



THE TRUTH ABOUT THIS COUNTRY'S FOOD. 



HOW TO SAVE jT 1 80,000,000 A YEAR. 



" If the soil of the United Kingdom were cultivated only as it was thirty-five years ago, 

 24,000,000 people, instead of 17,000,000, could live on home-grown food; and that culture, 

 while giving occupation to an additional 750,000 men, would give nearly 3,000,000 wealthy 

 home customers to the British manufactures. If the cultivatable area of the United Kingdom were 

 cultivated as the soil is cultivated on tjic average in Belgium, the United Kingdom would 

 have food for at least 37,000,000 inhabitants ; and it might export agricultural produce with- 

 out ceasing to manufacture so as freely to supply all the needs of a wealthy population. And 

 tinally, if the population of this country came to be doubled, all that would be required for pro- 

 ducing the food for 80,000,000 inhabitants would be to cultivate the soil as it is cultivated in the 

 best farms of this country, in Lombardy, and in Flanders." — Prince Kropotkin. 



" The call to the nation at present is to put new life into agriculture and the pastoral industries. " 

 — BisHcip OF Oxford, at Church Congress, Middlesbrough. 



p«'-'^-««^ HERE exists to-day amongst the 

 ^ British public a profound belief that 



'* it is quite impossible for this country 

 to feed with produce grown at home 

 the millions of her population. Not 

 only is this believed by the masses, 

 but it h.is so become an obsession that Govern- 

 ment after Government spends money, time, and 

 thought in devising ways and means to safe- 

 guard food coming from outside in time of war. 

 It is a commonly accepted theory that in time of 

 war the greatest and most immediate dange# 

 facing this country is starvation, owing to pos- 

 sible interruption of foreign grain supplies. And 

 yet the whole belief is a fallacy, an astonishing 

 demonstration of crass ignorance and a wilful, if 

 now unconscious, shutting of eyes to obvious 

 :acts. There is no lack of evidence that the soil 

 of Britain, properly treated, can produce enough 

 to feed every man, woman and child of the 

 population, and possibly even export foodstuffs. 

 Imagine what this would mean to us. To-day 

 there is a steady outflow of nearly ;^ 180,000,000 

 in order to import agricultural produce to feed 

 the population of these islands. Each year, 

 therefore, sees us that much poorer and the 

 agriculturists of other countries richer. .And 

 the money goes in the main to countries where 

 the natur.il advantages for cultivation are far 

 less than they are here. Denmark, France, and 

 Belgium, for instance, arc not blessed with 

 fertile soils above the ordinary, and yet, as 

 someone has put it, " we are employing every 

 year about 150,000 Danish smallholders to pro- 

 duce for us eggs, poultry, butler, and bacon, 

 and we pay for this ;^20,ooo,ooo in hard cash," 



and so on. The demand creates the supply, and 

 would do so just as surely if we employed 

 150,000 British smallholders in our own country 

 instead of the same number of Danes in theirs. 

 It seems as if there is an unholy desire in our 

 minds to prefer distant fields rather than those 

 under our own sway, just as millions of pennies 

 are given annually for the " heathen across the 

 seas " by people who rarely think of the poor 

 and starving within our gates. 



THE PERIL WITHIN OUR G.\TES. 



We do not pretend in this article to bring for- 

 ward any new discoveries or startling facts 

 which have not yet been known. But we feel it 

 our duty, basing our arguments upon facts and 

 observations of many well-known men and upon 

 the unrelenting statistical tables of change, to 

 call the people's attention to the question of 

 raising their own food within their own lands. 

 It is time to realise fully and finally that " he 

 who owns the inner square of a house is master 

 of the outer," and that in leaving the feeding 

 of our population in alien hands we do far more 

 to reduce the striking value of the British Navy 

 in war time than would be the case were we t(3 

 lose a naval battle. And the British Navv, vital 

 as it is to this country to protect its shores, is 

 to-day the only guarantee that within a few 

 weeks from the declaration of war there will 

 nr)t he millions of citizens dead of starvation. 

 Truly we have given the ownership of the inner 

 square to the enemy in no small measure, and 

 now we stand in peril by day and by night. 

 It is very well to boast that in steam coal we 

 have an advantage over the world, when we do 



