Present and Suggested Sources 



have not liked problems and have put them 

 far from us. Sooner or later every nation is 

 forced to consider problems. The longer 

 these are postponed the more difficult as a rule 

 do they become. Years ago other European 

 countries and the governments of our own 

 Dominions began to turn their serious 

 attention to the Problem of the Land ; 

 here we have hardly yet begun to do so. 

 Not only do we prefer not to think out 

 problems, but when we are forced to make 

 the attempt it is often rendered futile 

 because, also from disinclination to think, 

 we are a one-idea-at-a-time people. So 

 that if an important question is taken up, 

 its proportions are lost sight of and its 

 relation to other problems. 



Our politicians are largely to blame for 

 this, for they rarely try to educate the elec- 

 torate, or to induce them to face the problem 

 to be solved from the national point of view. 

 On the contrary, wretched party considera- 

 tions intrude themselves, and the politicians 

 think only in terms of votes. 



One obsession, which has maintained for 

 many years, is the " Blue Water policy." 



