226 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 
Because of the disappearance of the old fill-time home industries it 
necessitated a replanning of farm work. It required, of course, the 
investment of fresh capital, and thus gave the whip hand, within the 
industry, to those individuals with capital to command. 
The revolution was not carried through without a good deal of hardship 
to individuals—some of which, according to modern standards, amounted 
to grave social injustice. ‘The enclosures of the old open-field villages 
of the English Midlands and the Highland clearances need only be 
mentioned in this connection. 
Indeed, there have been difficulties and hardships associated with all 
the major steps of progress that we have traced. Each departure from 
tradition required a fresh effort of will and made a new demand for 
courage and enterprise. At every stage there were people who thought 
that things were very well as they had been; but these people have 
always been wrong. No reasonable interpretation of history can leave us in 
doubt that each great step in economic evolution has been amply justified. 
It is not only that a higher level of material prosperity has been attained, 
but that, upon the whole, this material prosperity has been turned by 
men to good account. No reasonable person would wish to return to 
the life of the Australian aborigine, the nomad or the African cultivator 
upon his patch of maize and yams. Many people feel, indeed, a strong 
if rather sentimental attraction towards the old peasant way of life. This 
is easy to understand, for most of us are removed but a generation or 
two from peasant homes. In truth, the modern business farm suffers, 
in some ways, by comparison with the peasant holding; but only, as 
I believe, because we have not as yet fully succeeded in translating the 
economic advantages of the former into social good. ‘The broad lesson 
of history, as I see it, is that we must take our courage in both hands 
and face the task that we now see before us. 
For some of the origins of our present agricultural problem we must 
go back to the seventies of last century, which marked the end of what 
has been called the golden age of British farming. At that time, in 
those countries where agriculture had been separated from the other 
industries, the division of national incomes between the two classes was 
favourable to the agriculturist—he got fair value, in terms of manu- 
factured goods and services, for his labour and enterprise. It is true, 
indeed, that where the agricultural class was divided into landlords, 
tenants and labourers there was, according to modern standards, a very 
inequitable division, as between rent, profit and wages, of the net gains 
from farming; but this inequity was by no means peculiar to farming. 
Since the seventies the productive capacity of agriculture has constantly 
tended to increase more rapidly than the demand for agricultural produce. 
The one check in the process was caused by the Great War, but this has 
already been more than made good. The result has been that, except 
during the period from 1917 till 1921, when the boot was certainly on 
the other leg, agriculturists have failed to secure a due reward for their 
increasing efficiency. 
The rise in the output of world agriculture has been made possible, 
firstly, by a vast increase in the area of available land, and in supplies of 
