246 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



It is not by increasing the cost of food, but by decreasing the cost 

 of its production and the State-imposed burdens upon cultivated land 

 that the economic salvation of British agriculture can best be secured. 

 The former course can but reduce demand and antagonise urban 

 interests, while the latter will have the contrary effect. 



The British agricultural landowner is to-day on his trial. Unless he 

 justifies himself as such the Nationalisation ol the Land is inevitable. 

 Public opinion will demand his extinction, and Parliament will endorse 

 the demand. Most landowners have been for the last two generations 

 mere rent receivers, and have possessed neither tlie knowledge nor the 

 inclination personally to administer their own estates, still less to culti- 

 vate them on commercial lines for their own and the nation's benefit. 

 So far as they have been organised as a class of the community they 

 have been organised, not as producers of wealth, but as defenders of 

 property, and as such their organisation has, in a highly democratic 

 country, afforded them but a small and steadily decreasing measure 

 of security. They have^ thus lost their political power, because it had 

 no economic basis. As individuals they have, in the main, done gooti 

 service to the State. No class has consistently shown itself more 

 patriotic, unselfish, and philanthropic, or more imbued with a high sense 

 of public duty, inspired by lofty traditions unrivalled in any other 

 country in the world. As statesmen and as local administrators they 

 have, while occupying the position of the governing class, set a standard 

 of political and commercial integi'ity which permeated the national life. 

 They have been stigmatised, not wholly without justification, as 

 ignorant, reactionary, and despotic. But at least it can be said that 

 during the period when their power and influence in the State were 

 greatest Britain attained to her outstanding position as the chief demo- 

 cracy of the world, and as the great champion of liberty, alike of person, 

 of speech, and of Press. 



Assuming that landowner organisation and landowner leadership as a 

 condition precedent thereto are urgently necessary on the one hand 

 for the welfare of the agricultural industry, and on the other for the 

 greater security of the nation, through the material increase of its food 

 and timber output, there would appear to be two alternative types of 

 lando'wnership, and two only, likely to find justification in post- War 

 Britain, namely, individual proprietorship based upon agricultural 

 training and commercial experience, or the proprietorship of the State, 

 effected through the Nationalisation of the Land. The former alterna- 

 tive is still possible if landowners will but bestir themselves and take 

 upon their shoulders the responsibility which is pre-eminently theirs, 

 and which is incapable of effective delegation or vicarious execution. 



The factors which give promise that in the future the British 

 landowner will once more take his proper place in affording an 

 enlightened lead to the agricultural industry, and will thus bring about 

 a rural renaissance comparable to that of 150 years ago, are, on the 

 one hand, his present impoverishment, and on the other his growing 

 desire to be suitably trained for his managerial duties. It was the 

 poverty of the landowner which, in Denmark, Germany and Belgium, 

 created the necessary impetus to agricultural progress in those countries 



