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The Review of Reviews. 



very thorough psychological summing up of the 

 human factor. " First observe the person, then 

 preach the law," wrote Confucius, and who shall 

 say that he is not right? There are many 

 sterling qualities in the material of agricultural 

 labour, but any real revival must be based upon 

 an understanding of limitations as well as 

 appreciation of qualities. We quite agree with 

 Mr. Carleton when he says : — 



" We believe that the man in the village who 

 aspires to something better, who is trying to get 

 a footing on the soil, who aims at making a 

 decent home in his own land, is the man of all 

 others who deserves encouragement. He is a 

 priceless national asset. We mean to help him." 



THE HORROR OF ISOLATION. 



But we cannot but recognise the fact that 

 there are many obstacles to any policy of putting 

 men back on the land. And the greatest of all 

 is the horror of the average human being of 

 being alone. Man is largely now a gregarious 

 animal, and the isolation of the country appals 

 him, or in any case instinctively he is bored. 

 Thus to-day we find men refusing better wages 

 on the land in order to fight for existence in the 

 towns, where they rub shoulders with other men 

 and can go and see the cinema on Saturdays. 

 We mention this simply that there may be made 

 due allowance for such factors. It will probably 

 be solved by the creation of country communi- 

 ties, rural cities ; but the obstacle must be taken 

 into account. 



HOW TO SAVE ;^ 1 80,000,000 A YEAR. 



We have therefore no reason to doubt, first, 

 that it is a national duty to put the agriculture 

 of this country on a sound basis; second, that it 

 is no party question ; and third, that everyone 

 will be in favour of su h a revival. There are 

 no toes — at least, no British toes — to be trod on, 

 and, after all, the owners of foreign toes have 

 them now well protected by shoes bought with 

 the yearly millions paid out from this country. 



The total amount of money leaving the country 

 annually for agricultural products is nearly 

 ^'180,000,000. The proper use of the land 

 would mean that this sum would remain to 

 enrich the people. It means no less than ^4 

 additional per head of population each year, or 

 an immediate benefit of one-third of the amount 

 which the Old Age Pensions Act will give at 

 the age of seventy. 



The purchasing, the investment, power of the 

 country would be enormously increased — by the 

 amount of the yearly budget figures almost — and 

 :i new era of prosperity, more stable than one 

 based only on industries, would dawn. The 

 industry of the country would benefit enormously 

 from the revival of agriculture, while the solu- 



tion of the social problem is bound up in the 

 proper use of the land of our forefathers. 



POPULATION UP, FOOD PRODUCTION DOWN. 



The population has gone up and the food 

 production has gone down to an alarming 

 degree. Therefore the unfavourable balance is 

 always increasing. And this is not the worst. 

 Whereas in the years 1853-60 the soil of Britain 

 nourished one inhabitant on every two aces 

 cultivated, why did it require three acres in 

 order to nourish the same inhabitant in 1887? 

 The answer is plain : merely and simply because 

 agriculture had fallen into neglect. To quote 

 Prince Kropotkin, whose book on Fields, Fac- 

 tories and Workshops is one which every serious 

 thinker in this country should read : — 



Agriculture has not changed its direction, as we are 

 often told; it simply went down in all directions. Land 

 is going out of culture at a perilous rate, while the latest 

 improvements in market gardening, fruit-growing, and 

 poultry-keeping are but a mere trifle if we compare them 

 with what has been done in France, Belgium, and 

 America. The cause of this general downward movement 

 is self-evident. It is the desertion, the abandonment of 

 the land. Each crop requiring human labour has had its 

 area reduced ; and one-third of the agricultural labourers 

 have been sent away since 1861 to reinforce the ranks of 

 the unemployed in the cities, so that, far from being 

 over-populated, the fields of Britain are starved of 

 human labour, as James Caird used to say. The British 

 nation does not work on her soil ; she is prevented from 

 doing so ; and the would-be economists complain that the 

 soil will not nourish its inhabitants. 



THE REDUCTION IN WHEAT PRODUCTION. 



While the area under wheat had been reduced 

 in 1887 by fully 1,590,000 acres from 1853-60, 

 the average crop of the years 1883-86 was below 

 the average crop of 1853-60 by more than 

 40,000,000 bushels ; and this deficit alone repre- 

 sented the food of more than 7,000,000 inhabit- 

 ants. In igio the total acreage under wheat 

 was 1, 8og, 000 acres, showing a further shrinkage 

 of 693,000 acres from 1886. Thus we see that 

 the increased importation of wheat and other 

 agricultural produce was not primarily a result 

 of increase in population, but because land went 

 out of cultivation at an astounding rate, no 

 fewer than 2,000,000 acres ceasing to be pro- 

 ductive. The argument that the wheat area had 

 been reduced in order to meet a changed 

 character in agriculture does not really hold 

 water. It is true that permanent pasture shows 

 a very considerable increase, but that does not 

 prevent us having to import milk products from 

 countries whose natural pasture land is poorer 

 than are the meadows of this country. The 

 only possible justification for the large increase 

 of pasture land in the I'nilcd Kingdom would be 

 if such land was to be cultivated in such a way 

 as to produce at least moderately satisfactory- 

 results. To let land go out of cultivation, to 



