266 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



Even the large farmers who can put into practice some of the economies 

 of an ordered industry are helpless against the large commercial organisa- 

 tions which pass on their produce to the customers. Always there is the 

 peasant farmer to cut prices. The position of the imperfectly industrialised 

 farms may be compared with that of the new factories a century ago : their 

 processes are not sufficiently developed to enable them to compete with 

 any certainty of success against the single-handed worker, the power-mill 

 has not yet beaten the hand-loom. 



I cannot, however, jiursue this issue. I return to my original text, 

 that if we are to continue to feed the growing population of the world on 

 the present methods a continued expansion of the cultivated area is 

 required ; new land is called for year after year. I cannot see where 

 this new land of the necessary quality is to be found in quantities com- 

 mensurate with the immediate demand. Doubtless the white races will 

 insist on maintaining their rising standard of living and will apply deliberate 

 checks to their fertility, a process we already see in action. But the restric- 

 tion of increase will not take effect all at once even under economic pressure, 

 and the danger lies in the period preceding the comparative stabilisation. 

 As it cannot be supposed that the development of the civilised races can be 

 allowed permanently to be checked by lack of food when food is obtainable, 

 it follows that resort must be had to the intensification of production from 

 the area already under cultivation. The means for that intensification 

 are already in sight, more will be supplied with the advancement of 

 research. Intensification, however, is in the main attended by a higher 

 cost of production, and movement in that direction' is likely to be slow 

 until it is stimulated by a rise of prices. Organisation will have to be 

 introduced into the industry, and it may be expected that organisation 

 will take one or other of three forms. The farmer may be left as the 

 producing unit, but his methods will be strictly controlled and standardised 

 by the great selling corporations that handle his produce, and these 

 corporations may be either commercial ventures or co-operative associa- 

 tions of the farmers themselves. The co-operative venture appears to 

 imply an even more rigid discipline of the indi\ddual than that imposed 

 by the capitalist firm. Alternatively the capitalist may venture upon the 

 direct exploitation of large areas of land and industrialise farming as he 

 has industrialised other producing businesses. But capital will only be 

 tempted back to farming, whether for the organisation of the business or 

 even to enable the individual to take advantage of the possibilities of 

 intensification, if prices rise to a definitely remunerative level. I hope I 

 have given reasons for supposing that they must rise, because the surge 

 in population set up by the unprecedented extension of the cultivated 

 area last century cannot all at once be checked, whereas the new land 

 still available is either inadequate in amount or unsuited to cheap pro- 

 duction by the old methods. How close at hand the jieriod of pressure 

 may be it is unsafe to prophesy, but it may be agreed that pressure is 

 sooner or later inevitable and that one of the biggest problems before the 

 world at present is to prevent the pressure developing suddenly or becoming 

 unbearable. The intensification of production is the only remedy, and, 

 again, the only means of rendering intensification practicable is the 

 continued pursuit of scientific research. 



