922 



Land Drainage and Unemployment. 



[Jan., 



based upon scientific methods and broad experience, would be 

 incalculable. 



Many of the countries that once imported freely have either 

 been schooled by circumstances to provide for their own needs 

 or have been reduced in purchasing power. They will buy 

 nothing unless convinced that they are buying what is better 

 and in the long run cheaper than what they can themselves 

 produce. Failure of any implement placed on a foreign market 

 will prejudice indefinitely not only the firm but. the nation 

 producing, and the less qualified the purchasers are to account 

 for the failure, the deeper roots their prejudice will strike. 



Agriculture was the first-born of human arts. It has changed, 

 no doubt, since the period chosen as a setting of the earliest 

 and noblest of human stories, which saw in the first inhabitant 

 of our world a gardener, and a keeper of sheep and a tiller of the 

 earth in his sons. Our need of it, however, is not one whit the 

 less. Never perhaps in the history of humanity has there been 

 so real, so purposeful a resolve to beat swords into plough- 

 shares. Never certainly in the history of humanity has there 

 been so sore a need th-at the converted product should be 

 economic and efficient. 



****** 



LAND DRAINAGE AND UNEMPLOY- 

 MENT, 



At the beginning of November a substantial sum of money 

 was placed at the disposal of the Ministry for carrying out 

 drainage schemes with the primary object of relieving unemploy- 

 ment.* Out of this Fund, advances are made by the Ministry 

 (a) to Drainage Authorities, and (h) to County Agricultural 

 Committees, to defray the cost of drainage schemes submitted 

 to and duly approved by the Ministry. 



Drainage Authorities are required to repay to the Ministry 

 25 per cent, of the net cost of each scheme within six months 

 of its completion. 



Agricultural Committees, which can only carry out schemes 

 on" a purely voluntary basis, are required to secure from the 

 aifected landowners and occupiers undertakings to repay 

 33J- per cent, of the estimated cost of each scheme. This repay- 

 ment may in suitable cases be spread over a period not exceeding 

 two years, the deferred payments bearing interest at 5 per cent. 



* See this Journal, December, 1921, p. 839. 



