230 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



developments, has excelled all countries of the world in her production 

 per acre of cultivated land. The landowners have taken a specially 

 active part in agricultural production of every description as well as 

 in stock breeding and dairying on their estates, and by championing the 

 interests of the rural community in the agricultural societies and in the 

 National Legislature. Many of them insist upon their sons making a 

 specialised study of agriculture, and a considerable number of land- 

 owners' wives are beginning to take an active interest in women's insti- 

 tutes (Cercles de Fermieres) and in the Institut Menager Agricole of 

 Laeken, in which prospective landowners' wives are properly trained 

 to play an active part in the social life of the countryside. So well 

 have the whole agricultural community, led by the landowners, per- 

 formed their part that politicians and the general public alike in Belgium 

 recognise that the welfare of their country depends ultimately upon a 

 flourishing agricultural industry. Not only has considerable attention 

 been paid to agricultural education in all grades of Belgian schools, 

 but a certain modicum of instruction concerning the land and the national 

 importance of its proper development is, even in the urban schools, 

 inculcated in the minds of all future Belgian citizens, with the result 

 that there exists throughout Belgium a sound public opinion in relation 

 to agricultural problems. No such public opinion can be said to exist 

 at the present time in this country. Our landowners are not as a 

 class educational enthusiasts. 



In Germany also, which contains to a large extent an urban and 

 industrial population, the Government has concentrated much attention 

 upon the proper development of land and of agriculture. From the 

 political point of view agriculture in Germany, as represented by the 

 agrarian party, is probably stronger in proportion to its urban population 

 than in any other country. It is, however, significant to note that 

 there agricultural organisation for industrial needs preceded its organisa- 

 tion for political purposes. There, too, prior to the War, the great 

 landowners took the lead, and although in some parts of Germany 

 the larger agricultural estates are administered more or less upon Eng- 

 lish lines, the owner is almost invariably also a farmer, who conducts his 

 farming operations on a strictly business footing. The first step in the 

 organisation of Germany's agricultural industry may be said to have 

 been taken when, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, the land- 

 owners founded the Landschaft as a means of providing credit for estate 

 purposes, recognising, as they did, that credit is the life-blood of the 

 industry, if available on easy and attractive terms, but that in the form 

 of a permanent mortgage it is apt to become a burden upon owner 

 and occupier alike. Out of this landowners' bank, which in 1914 had a 

 capital of 150,000,OOOL, grew the provision of credit for curx'ent agricul- 

 tural needs through the medium of the Raiffeisen and Schulze-Delitzsch 

 Banks, the former of which had a turnover in 1914 of over 3O0,OO0,OO0L 



In France most of the large landowners reside on their estates, which 

 they cultivate themselves, either wholly or in part. They take a 

 practical interest in all matters relating to the progress of agriculture, 

 and are everywhere the promoters of co-operation in all its forms. 

 In particular they are usually at the head of the important agricultural 



