^,s^,.«;)

■J'.:x ■

AGRICULTURE

AND
THE COMMUNITY

Sy

JOSEPH F. DUNCAN

The Scottish Farm Servants' Union
Queensgate, Stirling

International Bookshops Ltd.
London : Bradford :

10 Johnson's Court, E.C. 103 Kirkgate

AGRICULTURE AND THE COMMUNITY

AGRICULTURE

AND

THE COMMUNITY

JOSEPH F. DUNCAN

The

Scottish Farm

Servants

Union

Queensg

ite,

-AND

Stirling

International

Bookshops

Ltd.

Lor

don :

Bradford :

10

Johnson'

s Court, E.C.

103 Kirkgate

1921

Although this book has been published
by The Scottish Farm Servants' Union,
whose General Secretary I am, and the
general principles outlined have been
adopted by the Union, I am solely
responsible for the method of statement,
and for the detailed criticisms and
proposals.

I desire to express my thanks to my
colleag-ue, Miss Mary E. Sutherland,
for her help in revising- the manuscript
and reading the proofs.

J. F. D.

Contents

PAGB

Introduction - vii.

GHAPTBR

I. The Organisation of the Industry - - i

System of Tenure ----- i

The Landowner ----- 6

The Farmer - - - - - - i6

The Farm Worker - - - - - 27

II. Some Present Day Policies - - - 35

Guaranteed Prices - - - - - 35

Security of Tenure - - - - - 41

Occupying Ownership - - _ _ 44

Small Holdings ----- 46

III. A National Policy 56

The Need for Change - - - - 56

National Responsibility - - _ - 60

The Administrative Authorities - - - 66

Control of Land and Cultivation - - 74

Demonstration Farms - - - - 79

The Unit of Production - - - - 83

IV. The Consumers' Interest - - - - 92

Fiscal Policy - - - - _ 92

Markets and Middlemen - - - - 99

V. The Future of the Farm Worker - - 107

VI. Conclusion 115

>*>

/ ■'-^%jf'

Introdudion.

THE following essay was written in the spring of 192 1.
Its purpose is to trace the causes which have
operated to bring the agricultural industry to the
position we find it in to-day and to discuss a policy by
which the community will be able to make the industry
contribute its proper share to the public welfare. I make
no pretensions to any originality of treatment in analysing
the causes of the decay of agriculture, or to have produced
any new schemes of reform. I have purposely confined
myself to the criticisms of those who are recognised as
competent judges and have merely brought the criticisms
together and tried to make the deductions which the facts
warrant. The principal deduction I make is that the
present system of private ownership and control of land,
modified in some degree by legislation and administration,
and the private control and management of farming
operations for profit-making, have proved unable to make
adequate use of the national resources, and that the in-
dustry, if left to be the private speculation of landowners
and farmers, will tend to become less capable of supplying
the needs of the community. The policy I propose is that
the community should definitely make itself responsible
for the maintenance of a standard of control and manage-
ment of agricultural land, and for a standard of cultivation,
and should set up the necessary machinery for enforcing
these standards, taking over land and arranging for
farming on its own responsibility.

viii. Agriculture and the Community.

When the essay was written the Government policy of
subsidising agriculture was in operation, and I discussed
at some length the effect of that policy and gave my
reasons why I thought the pohcy was a bad one. The
sudden reversal of that policy a few days ago may seem
to render that section of the essay superfluous. I have
decided to let the section stand as written. I think I may
claim that there at least my argument has been proved
true.

The farmers have reason to complain that they have
been unfairly dealt with by the Government. Whether
they were wise in trusting the industry to the vagaries of
politics is another matter. They cannot say they were
not sufficiently warned. Those of us who were in the
minority on the Royal Commission on Agriculture did our
best to warn them of the risks they were running, but
without avail. For the Government there is no excuse.
Not only was the policy of guarantees adopted by the
Government, but an attempt was made to give it a per-
manency unusual in legislation in this country by the
proviso for four years' notice of change. They have
broken faith with the farmers. The fact that they can do
so with impunity is the bitter lesson for the farmers. No
Government could carry on a policy of subsidising farmers
which would entail large drafts on the taxpayer, and when
the farmers realise that fact we shall have come to the
end of guaranteed policies and protection.

The farm workers in England have much more reason
to complain of the Government change of policy regarding
their wages. The establishment of the Wages Board
altered the whole position in the industry in the fixing of

Introduction. ix.

wages and conditions. The workers accepted the pro-
cedure laid down by the Government and relied upon the
machinery provided for adjusting wages and working
conditions. To sweep away the machinery at the time
when the reversal of the guaranteed prices tends to en-
courage farmers to make an attack on wages, is to leave
the workers to face an entirely new situation bereft of the
maohinery to which they had been invited to entrust the
settlement of these questions. The Government's action
is a direct invitation to the farmers to attack the standard
of living of the workers. In Scotland the position is
different. There the workers never had any faith in the
wages policy of the Government and took their own line
of action independently of the Committees set up under
the Act.

The position for the community is quite as serious,
however. By sweeping away even the meagre control of
farming w'hich the Agriculture Act gave, we are thrown
back to uncontrolled private speculation in the manage-
ment and cultivation of land. That was the danger of
interlocking prices, wages and control. If we are to wash
our hands, as a community, of the agricultural industry
in this w^ay and leave it to muddle along, with landlords
refusing to equip and maintain the land, and farmers
playing for safety by letting down the land, and the
workers left to sink or swim as they may be able, we may
bid farewell to any revival of agriculture in this country.
To decontrol agriculture and do nothing else is simply to
declare we have no policy in agriculture. I submit that
the policy I have outlined is all the more urgent because
of the sudden reversal of the Government policy and that

X. Agriculture and the Community).

we cannot afford to leave agriculture to the uncontrolled
activities of private landlords and farmers, concerned
merely with securing their own interests. The interest
of the community does not coincide with these sectional
and class interests. The interest of the community is to
get the best use made of the land and that it will secure
only by accepting full responsibility for the use the land
is put to.

AGRICULTURE AND THE COMMUNITY.

The Organisation of the Industry.

System of Tenure.

British ag-riculture differs from that of other old and
settled countries in two important directions. The land
is held by tenants in comparatively large holdings. In
England and Wales in 1919 only 11.68 per cent, of the
occupiers of agricultural holdings owned or mainly owned
their holdings, while the acreage so held represented only
12.32 per cent, of the total under crops and grass. This
in spite of the fact that for 12 months previous to the
date on which returns were collected a large number of
sales of land had taken place and newspaper readers were
being assured that the land of England was changing
hands. As compared with 19 13 the percentage of occupiers
who were owners had increased from 11. 19 per cent, to
11.68 per cent., while the percentage of the total acreage
occupied by owners had increased from 10.65 to 12.32 per
cent. In the same year while the number of occupiers of
holdings of 150 acres and over formed only 12.29 per cent,
of the total number of occupiers in England and Wales,
the area held in holdings of 150 acres and over formed
52.65 per cent, of the total area under crops and grass.*

There are thus three distinct classes directly interested
in agriculture : the landlords who own the land and the

* See Tables, pages 52 and 53.

2 Agriculture and the Community).

permanent equipment of the farms, such as houses,
steading's, etc. ; the farmers, who provide the working
capital and control the business of production ; and the
workmen, who are employed by the farmers and work for
wagfes. It is unfortunate that we have no precise infor-
mation which would bring out the relative number of
people included in each group or which would show the
extent and nature of their interest in the industry. Such
statistics as are available do not enable us to estimate
accurately the number of owners of land and the rent which
they draw from agricultural land. We have the figures
of the census giving the number of farmers and the
different classes of wage-earners, but we have no reliable
information as to the capital employed in agriculture by
these farmers or the returns in the form of profit on
capital employed, nor have we any accurate information
as to the amount the industry pays to the workers in
wages. The last return of landowners, known as " The
New Domesday Book," was made in 1873, and Sir Leo
Money in 1905, working from the data there supplied,
estimated that one half the area of the whole country was
owned by 2500 people. The number of farmers and
graziers, both men and women together, with their
relatives of both sexes assisting, given in the census
returns for 191 1, was 383,333 in England and Wales. The
number of workers of both sexes employed in agriculture
was 678,503.

The facts given above are sufficient to establish the
general statement that the land in Britain is owned in large
estates by a comparatively small number of private owners
and let to a large number of tenants whose holdings range

The Organisation oj the Industry. 3

from small patches to larg-e-scale farms, but that the
typical farm ranges round about 200 acres and that these
farms are worked by capitalist farmers employing workers
who are paid wages. This system has grown up within
the past 150 years and may be said to have become estab-
lished during the last century. It has been a natural
development alongside the development of the large-scale
manufacturing industries in this country. The rapidly
increasing population in the manufacturing centres making
greater demands for the production of breadstuffs, meat
and milk for sale, and at the same time attracting the
workers from the land, has aided this development of
agriculture. During the first half of the 19th century this
demand led to rising prices which enabled the farmers
to increase their profits and the landlords to increase their
rents, so that there was a stimulus to both these classes
to increase the scale of their operations. The small owners
and occupiers who had been steadily decreasing for three
centuries gave way before the economic pressure of the
other interests or were driven from their holdings by the
political power of the land-owning class exercised through
the Enclosure Acts. The opening up of the markets of
this country to the unrestricted importation of food sup-
plies from abroad and the development of the wheat lands
of the New World lessened the return to landowners and
farmers, and put a check to the tendency to the amal-
gamation of holdings. It did not affect to any extent the
distribution of land, and even the attempts by legislation
during the last three decades to establish smallholders on
British land have done little to modify the general develop-
ment of British agriculture. The depression of the last

4 Agriculture and the Community.

twenty years of the 19th century changed the methods of
cultivation but made Uttle impression on the main Hnes of
the structure of the industry.

The system of land tenure in this country and the"
organisation of the agricultural industry have not
developed without criticism. The criticism has generally
been directed towards the excessive depopulation of the
rural districts and the degradation of the social condition
of the farm worker. Such criticism has, however, been
sporadic, and until recent years did not result in any or-
ganised effort by the community to alter the relations of
landlord, tenant and worker. Despairing efforts were
made from time to time by the workmen to better their
position, but against the power of the landowners and the
farmers and in face of the indifference of the general com-
munity, these efforts made little impression. Minor
changes in the relations between the landlords and the
tenants in the direction of limiting the power of the land-
owner by giving security for the capital of the tenants,
were introduced. So long, however, as the community
secured an abundant supply of cheap food from abroad,
it concerned itself very little with the agricultural industry
and left the classes immediately interested to settle their
relations between themselves without making any demands
on the industry. There were signs in the earlier years
of this century that the indifference of the community was
giving place to a critical attitude towards the industry
and there was a tendency to make demands upon it in the
public interest. The right of the landowners to control
the use of land as seemed best to them was being chal-
lenged. The use being made of the land by the farmers

The Organisation oj the Industry. 5

was criticised from the standpoint of production, and the
condition of the worker began to trouble the social con-
science. The community was no longer inclined to leave
the industry to pursue its own course, but vaguely and
incoherently showed signs of judging its use of the nation's
land and its contribution to the common welfare. The
answer given by those who defended the present system
was that with all its defects the system worked better
than any other system which could be suggested for British
agriculture. They asserted that such defects as it did
show were due to the neglect of the industry by the State
and its failure to assist the industry against foreign
competitors.

The landowners were on the defensive against the
political campaign launched by Mr. Lloyd George. The
farmers were uneasy because of the beginning of Trade
Union organisation amongst the farm workers and the
threat of a minimum wage enacted by legislation. The
workers were beginning to stir themselves hopefully in
another effort to secure reasonable conditions of living.
Everything seemed to point to the industry being faced
with political and industrial changes of a far-reaching
character.

The outbreak of war altered entirely the position of the
industry. The nation found its overseas supplies largely
cut off. Turning to the agricultural industry it made
demands on it for an immediate increase in the production
of food, and criticism since then has ranged round the
capacity of British agriculture to maintain a larger food
production from the soil of Britain. Under the stress of
national emergency the community has discovered that it

6 Agriculture and the Community.

cannot leave the agricultural industry to be the concern
of those immediately engaged in it. The risk of a blockade
becoming effective in war-time brought home acutely to
the community how little it could depend on its own pro-
duction. It brought to a head the rather vague criticisms
which had been heard before the war . It began to dawn
on people that the most important agricultural interest was
that of the community and that each class engaged in it
must be judged by its contribution towards the national
welfare. The demand made upon it was for public service.
If the world settles down again to peaceful industry the
force of that demand may lessen. It is not likely, however,
to disappear.

The Landowner.
We often hear it said that there are three partners in
the industry of agriculture — the landowners, the farmers
and the wage-earners. The function of the landowner is
declared to be the provision of the land and its permanent
equipment, for which the farmer pays rent. How much
of this rent may be properly reckoned as payment for the
use of capital spent in improving and equipping the land
we have no means of estimating. The defenders of private
ownership of land would have us believe that rent is
nothing more than a moderate rate of interest on capital
expended by the landlord in this direction. Lord Ernie
in " English Farming Past and Present " (2nd edition, p.
398) says : — " Landlords spent their money liberally on
the up-to-date equipment of their land with houses, farm
buildings, cottages, drainage, fences, roads ; mainly by
their expenditure, directly or indirectly, prairie land has
been converted into agricultural land. Tenants hired the

The Organisation oj the Industr]). 7

use of all this capital at the moderate rate of interest which
is represented by the rent." There is no historical
justification for this claim. Caird estimated in 1878, and
his figures have generally been accepted, that the rent of
cultivated land per acre in 1770 was 13/-; in 1850, 27/-;
and in 1878, 30/-. In" Progress of the Nation " (Porter
and Hirst, 1912, p. 119) figures are quoted based on
returns for 132,000 acres up to 1871, and 400,000 acres
after that date :

s.

d. s. d.

1851-1855 - 20 9 1880-1883 - 26 9

1856-1860 - 22 I 1884-1886 - 24 II

1861-1865 - 23 7 1887-1889 - 22 II

1866-1871 - 24 8 1890-1892 - 22 10

1872-1874 - 28 10 1893-1894 - 21 8

1875-1877 - 29 4 1895-1896 - 21 I

1 878- 1 880 - 27 6
Professor Nicholson writes: — "It is no doubt true
that at the end of the i8th century and at the beginning
of the 19th the very great rise that took place in rents,
sometimes fivefold, was not due entirely to improvements
and the increase of produce." Lord Ernie's book, already
quoted, may be consulted to srow that other causes than
the improvements effected by the expenditure of the land-
lords' capital on land operated to produce an increase of
rent. Dealing with the increase in the value of land
between 1857 and 1875, Caird in " Landed Interest " (p.
98) says : — " This vast increase in the value of landed
property within the short period of twenty years is very
remarkable. It has been already shown that the improve-
ment expenditure effected by loans has been fifteen

I

8 Agriculture and the Community).

millions. If we assume that even three times as much
has been effected during- the same period by private capital
without loans, we here see that the capital wealth of the
owners of landed property has been increased by three
hundred and thirty-one millions sterling in these twenty
years, at a cost to them which probably has not exceeded
sixty millions. This increase, as elsewhere explained,
has arisen chiefly from the great advance in the consump-
tion and value of meat and dairy produce, and is thus only
in part the result of land improvement." The two periods
of rapidly rising rents were those of the Napoleonic wars
and the European and American wars of the 'fifties (Ernie,
pp. 2IO and 372). Rising prices were followed by rising
rents. The value of the land was not increased by the
capital expenditure of the landowners, but because the
landowners were able to exact an unearned increment
from the consumers through the farmers.

Even if we allow for the fall in rents during the last
twenty years of the 19th century, it is clear that a con-
siderable proportion of the payment made to landowners
in the form of rent cannot be reckoned as interest on
capital expended in improving the land. It ought also to
be remembered that the capital spent by the landlords
in improving the land was itself largely drawn from the
rents paid by tenants for the use of land. Whatever pro-
portion of rent may be reckoned as payment to the land-
lords for the use of the capital expended by them in
improving the land, it is obvious that from the point of
view of agriculture any payment made to the landowners
as economic rent for the unimproved land contributes
nothing to the value of the industry. It should be re-

The Organisation oj the Industry. 9

membered also that, on a large number of estates, the
improvements were the work of the tenants and the
increased rents resulting- from these improvements have
been secured by the landlords. In Scotland the system
of " improving- leases " was a method by which
impecunious landowners let land at low rents to the
tenants, who found the rents raised on them at the end
of the leases, thus paying for their own improvements.
There was also the system of tenants paying interest on
the cost of improvements, which meant that they really
paid for the improvements.

It is claimed that, besides providing the land and its
permanent equipment, the landowners perform a necessary
service to agriculture by managing and maintaining the
estates ; by selecting and guiding tenants ; by sharing in
the losses through reductions in the rent, and by acting
as the natural leaders in the industry. So long as the
land is cultivated by tenants, the management of the land
will be a separate function and it is contended that the
interest of the private owner secures this management
most efficiently.

How far the private ownership of land in the past may
be defended on these grounds I am not concerned to dis-
cuss at the moment. What we have to consider is, whether
the landowner to-day is providing the necessary permanent
equipment to enable the industry to develop, and whether
his management of the land results in the best use being
made of the soil. In other words, is the landowner a
partner in the agricultural industry who is performing a
useful function which could not be performed better by
any other agency? Considered from the point of view of

lo Agriculture and the Community).

agriculture, unless that question can be answered un-
hesitatingly in the affirmative, there is nothing sacred in
private ownership of land which ought to deter us from
considering an alternative. In the words of Lord Ernie,
" Private property in land is not so exceptional in its
nature as to make its tenure legally assailable. But the
moral title deeds by which some of it is held are not,
historically, without a flaw ; and no prescriptive rights,
according to modern reading of ancient maxims, can be
acquired against the People " (" English Farming,"
P- 397)-

The president of the National Farmers' Union of Scot-
land, Mr. James Gardner, giving evidence before the
Royal Commission on Agriculture, 1919, spoke of " the
more or less derelict condition of the permanent equipment
of many farms in drainage, housing, fencing, and the great
difficulty at the present time of getting these put in a
proper state of efficiency." In reply to a question he
answered, *' I think that in the majority of cases the
permanent equipment is more or less inefficient." He
agreed that this was not a new state of affairs and that
it was due to the fact that the cost of such improvements
was not a good investment. Most of the other farmers
who appeared before the Commission agreed that the
landowners were not able to make the capital expenditure
required. Every writer on agriculture in recent years
accepts this as merely a statement of the facts. Lord
Ernie devotes a large part of the final chapter of his book
to a sympathetic description of the plight of landowners.
" Something of the same apathy is certainly visible in the
management of many estates. Much ought to be done

The Organisation of the Industry. ii

which is left undone to put land to its most profitable use,
and to adapt its equipment to the requirements of
diversified farming. The impoverishment of the land-
owners by the new burden of taxation, which not only
cripples their incomes but cuts into their capital, is un-
doubtedly the main cause of the neglect. They have not
the money with which to make the necessary changes. To
say this, however, is only to say that the modern system
of farming has broken down in one of its most essential
features. . . . The land has suffered and is still suffering.
Thousands of acres of tillage and grass land are com-
paratively wasted, under-farmed and under-manned."
(" English Farming," p. 398). The Duke of Richmond
and Gordon, speaking in March, 192 1, said " he feared
very much whether in the future large landowners would
be able and have the money to maintain their estates in
the way in which they had carried them on in former years.
Many hardly realised the difficulties that now were upon
such landowners. In many cases on his property all that
came to him out of £1 rent was from 2/6 to 3/-." He
went on to suggest that the only way in which the land-
lord could live was by disposing of a number of his farms.
Coming from an owner of well-managed estates, the
statement is significant.

The acknowledged inability of the landowners to finance
their estates has been further confirmed by the large
number of estates which have changed hands in the last
few years. At first sight it might appear that the prices
paid for these estates indicated that the purchasers had
sufficient confidence in the industry to offer enhanced
prices, and hoped to be able to maintain them as going

12 Agriculture and the Community.

concerns. That is not a correct reading- of the facts.
Wealthy people buy estates, not for their agricultural
value, nor because they are looking for investments, but
because the ownership of land gives them a social position
and a standing in the county, which other forms of wealth
fail to give. Thus it is that while landowners complain
that the returns they receive from their land do not enable
them to maintain the permanent equipment of their farms,
there is never any lack of buyers who are content to pay
a price for agricultural estates which will not give them
a net return on the purchase price of more than 3 to 4
per cent, per annum.

The truth is that land in this country is not owned by
people who are primarily interested in agriculture, or who
become possessed of land because they desire to develop
the industry. The principal motive is social. Ownership
of land gives prestige and political power. Hence the
waste of land for sporting purposes and for the amenity
of the owners' residences, the indifference and incapacity
of much of the estate management.

It is clear that the owners of land are not performing
the function in agriculture which is given as the chief
justification for our system of land tenure. They are not
maintaining the permanent equipment of the land as a
going concern. Some of their defenders allege that this
is due to the burden of rates and taxes and the sums
exacted in Death Duties. Whether or not this is a
legitimate complaint need not concern us here, as not even
those who complain most have any hope that these burdens
can be removed. Whether or not the returns in the form
of rent are sufficient to enable the landlords to spend more

The Organisation of the Industry. 13

than they are spending on the equipment of the land is a
highly controversial question, but for practical purposes
it is relatively unimportant. Here and there a good case
can be made out that the land is under-rented, but taking
agricultural land generally, the rents paid at present are
as much as the land will bear under the present system.
Farmers at any rate will not agree that the landlords'
difficulties are to be solved by a general increase in rent.

What we have to recognise is that the estate system
has broken down so far as agriculture is concerned.
Capital is not being put into the land to develop it for
agricultural purposes, nor are there any indications that
the owners of land have sufficient confidence in the develop-
ment of the industry to induce them to make the necessary
expenditure. The land is being let down because, in the
words we hear so often used, " it does not pay to spend
money on land." Whatever the reasons alleged may be,
there is a general feeling of helplessness and hopelessness
on the part of landowners. They are unable to carry out
the principal function in agriculture by which they seek
to justify their position, the provision of the permanent
equipment of the land.

Nor is their position any better so far as the manage-
ment and control of the estates is concerned. When it is
remembered that the possession and control of land are
sought for social reasons rather than for agricultural
reasons, the result should not be unexpected. Their
interest is not in the business of agriculture. They do
not care to incur the odium of being strict with slack
tenants. Their social position and their influence in the
county are more important to them than the successful

14 Agriculture and the Community).

management of the land as an agricultural subject. The
position has been very moderately stated by Sir Daniel
Hall in " A Pilgrimage of British Farming " (p. 437) :
" If we consider the men who are engaged in this business
of agriculture, we must conclude that the owners, how-
ever kindly and helpful to their tenants, are yet deficient
in leadership. There is nowadays no one to set beside
Coke of Norfolk or the landowners who did pioneering
work in the second quarter of the nineteenth century ;
almost the only working part they take in agriculture
consists in the breeding of pedigree stock, and that rather
as a form of social competition than the improvement of
farming. The great opportunities of leadership they might
exercise in the way of drawing their tenants into co-
operative marketing and purchase, or improved methods
of farming, are rarely or never exercised ; at their worst,
landlords become mere rent receivers and must inevitably
become crowded out unless they take some higher view
of their function. "

Five years later the same writer in "Agriculture after
the War " (p. 66) sums up the position very tersely:
" The one thing the landowning class in this country have
lacked has been technical knowledge ; they have not
treated landowning as a career nor qualified themselves
to give a lead to their tenants. Nor have their agents
brought a more enlightened outlook to their profession.
The root of the evil lies in the owners' want of technical
knowledge of the land."*

* It is significant that the same criticism was made by Caird in
the middle of last century, cf. " English Agriculture," 1852, 2nd
edition, pp. 49a et seq., and " The Landed Interest," 1878, p. 103.

The Organisation of the Industry. 15

If confirmation of the view that the landowners have
failed in the function of manag-ing- their estates is required,
we find it in the widespread demand put forward by the
farmers for security of tenure and judicial rents. They
are not prepared to trust their capital and industry to the
management of the owners of land. If the demand for
security of tenure and judicial rents were put forward by
the unenterprising and timid section of the farmers, it
would not be so important, but when it is put forward by
the most enterprising- and alert section of the farming
community, is a significant proof of the breakdown of
the estate system on the side of management. " It is a
significant fact," says the Minority Report of the Royal
Commission on Agriculture, 1919, " that, almost without
exception, the farmers who have given evidence before
us have insisted on the necessity for greater security of
tenure being given to farmers. This insistence is quite
as strong on the part of the farmers in Scotland, where
the leasehold system is prevalent, as on the part of the
farmers of England and Wales with their yearly tenancies.
It is impossible not to recognise that there is no subject
on which farmers are so unanimously in agreement."
The recent Agriculture Act is merely the latest attempt
by legislation to protect the tenant against the landlord.
Legislation limiting the powers of owners over agricultural
land has been steadily growing until now the balance is
swinging over to public control because of the failure of
the private owners.

It has been claimed for the landowners that they were
the pioneers of improvement in agriculture in this country.
There were certainly outstanding figures amongst the

i6 Agriculture and the Community;.

landowners in the first half of the nineteenth century who
were leaders in the industry. In scientific and technical
work they made a substantial contribution to the building
up of the industry. They were exceptional however, and
not all the landowners could claim their distinction. There
were outstanding landowners who were distinguished in
the opposite direction. But whatever claim may be made
for past services by the landowners, the initiative has now
passed out of their hands. In education, scientific research
and technical demonstration the lead is now taken by the
State and the cost is borne by the community. The land-
owners can put forward no claim to-day on this ground.

We may sum up the position then by saying that what-
ever claims the landlords may put forward because of past
services, so far as agriculture is concerned to-day, they
are no longer effective partners in the industry. They do
not provide the money necessary for maintaining the
permanent equipment of the land as it ought to be main-
tained if agriculture is to become a progressive industry ;
they do not manage the land in a way that helps forward
the conduct of the industry ; and they have failed to bring
leadership or initiative to its development. By legislation,
administration and organisation the functions by which
they justify their position in the industry have passed from
them. They tend to become more and more mere receivers
of rent for agricultural land.

The Farmer.

No systematic attempt has been made to survey British
agriculture. The nearest approach we have is Sir A. D.
Hall's " Pilgrimage of British Farming," but valuable and

The Organisation oj the Industry. 17

illuminating as it is, it is more a series of impressionist
sketches than a systematic survey. There have been numer-
ous critics of farmers, and of our system of agriculture,
but the tendency has been to make sweeping generalisa-
tions based on contrasts with other countries, rarely with
sufficient allowances being made for widely different
conditions, or on comparisons with previous periods in
our own history, or from unqualified statistics of rural
depopulation. Thus we have had Dutch, Danish and
German agriculture compared with British agriculture and
the methods of these peoples commended to our farmers.
The higher production of these countries is generally
stressed, but it is seldom that sufficient allowance is made
for the widely different conditions, social, industrial, geo-
graphical and economic. Such comparisons help us but
little to estimate the possibilities of agriculture in our own
country, unless we have constantly in mind how difficult
it is in an industry such as agriculture to transplant
methods from one country to another.

Perhaps the two lines of criticism which have been most
popular in recent years have started from a contrast
between the area under cereals in the 'seventies of last
century, and the area under the same crops in the first
decade of this century, and the decrease in the number of
workers employed in agriculture over the same period. It
is a facile criticism, and like most facile criticisms,
essentially unsound. British agriculture survived the
crisis of the last two decades of the nineteenth century
only because it changed its system, and relied less upon
corn growing. The crisis was accentuated because of the

1 8 Agriculture and the Community.

slowness of both landlords and farmers to face the new
situation created by the development of the corn lands of
the New World. That the change when it did come swung
over too far to the other extreme is true, and that farmers
as a class had the lesson so deeply bitten into them that
they were unnecessarily timid when the tide began tO' turn
towards the end of the first decade of this century is
proved by the successful work of the more enterprising
and vigorous farmers in all districts. Sir Daniel Hall's
book gives much interesting evidence of this all over the
country. From the national standpoint the decay of
cultivation is a serious question, but when all the circum-
stances are taken into account, any sweeping generalisa-
tion based on the increase of grass land is essentially
unfair to those who had to bear the brunt of the bad times.
Nor is it enough to point out that the number of
workers employed on the land has steadily decreased.
Agriculture in every land is faced with the problem of how
to retain its labour supply in competition with the
industrial centres. The problem is largely a social one
and agriculture in the nature of things will always be
handicapped because of the gregarious instincts of human
beings. We have also to take into account the changes
which have been effected in agricultural methods.
Although much has yet to be done, agriculture has been
following the course of all other industries and endeavour-
ing to increase its mechanical power and lessen its
dependence on human labour. From the point of view of
the agricultural workers that is all to the good, and if they
had been able to follow the example of other workers and

The Organisation of the Industry). 19

increase their earning"s by organisation, the process would
undoubtedly have been accelerated. We may agree that
it is in the best interests of the community considered
from the social standpoint, that there should be a larger
proportion of our people engaged in agriculture and
leading the more settled and stable life which a rural
community proA'ides, but that is limited by the economic
power of the industry to maintain its workers at a
reasonable standard of existence, with proper social
opportunities. A larger agricultural population living at
the level of our agricultural workers during the past
generation would not have been a source of strength to
any community.

Both lines of criticism are sound only so far as it can
be shown that in the situation facing the farmers in this
country they failed to cultivate as much of the land as
they could with economic advantage, and that they
failed to retain the workers necessary for this greater
cultivation, and to give the workers such a standard of
living as made it possible for them to remain in the
industry. Here we enter on very debatable ground.
Farming cannot be tested like other industries. It is
conducted in the main by a large number of private
capitalists whose returns are not published and whose
incomes do not come for taxation purposes under any
review which enables reliable statistics to be collected. It
would almost seem that farmers are rather proud of the
fact that they do not keep books. They are secretive
and notoriously unwilling to admit that they ever make
profits. Anyone reading the evidence led by well known

20 Agriculture and the Community^.

farmers before the Royal Commission on Agriculture,
1 9 19, must be amazed at the tenacity with which they
stuck to their plea that farming does not pay, even in face
of the figures they themselves submitted, most of which
were estimates at the best, and not actual records of
transactions. The conclusion arrived at by the Committee
appointed by the Agricultural Wages Board to enquire into
the Financial Results of the Occupation of Land, 1919
(Cmd. 76), is probably as fair a summing up of the financial
position of agriculture in England and Wales, as will be
found: — "The Committee find considerable difficulty in
arriving at a just conclusion on either of the questions
referred to them. The evidence before them cannot be
said to allow of a demonstration of the financial position
either of the occupiers of land or of the workers upon it.
Certain indications emerge, but the arithmetical results
can only be accepted with qualifications, and in the result
the Committee are bound to exercise their own judgment
in submitting what they consider to be reasonable
deductions from the facts and figures. The problem is
complicated by the fact that while precise information is
regrettably sparse, general statements are very freely and
confidently made, in good faith by those who might be
expected to be well acquainted with the facts. Nothing
is more common than the allegation that farming is
normally an unremunerative business — that year after
year occupiers of land lose money. If farmers
systematically lost money, not only would none
remain in the business, but no one would be willing
to enter it. The fact is that the profits in farming, or
more precisely, the rate of interest earned on money

The Organisation of the Industry. 21

invested in farming, are, and will always be, as a rule,
less than the profits or interest obtainable in other
businesses. The man who has, say, ;^5,ooo or ;/rio,ooo
to invest in a business from which he proposes to make a
livelihood, will generally get a smaller remuneration for
his personal work and a lower return for his capital than
if he invested the same amount of capital and devoted his
personal energy to another form of commercial enterprise.
The reason is clear and well-recognised. The occupation
of a farmer has attractions to a very large number of
persons apart from the amount of money to be made by it.
So long as men prefer life on a farm with moderate income,
to life in an office or shop with a much larger income, so
long will the average profit on turnover or the average
interest on capital be less in the business of farming than
in other businesses involving the investment of capital."

Sir A. D. Hall, writing in 1910, in " A Pilgrimage of
British Farming " (pp. 146-7) is even more confident as
to the position of the industry : — " But if the methods of
British agriculture are very diverse, they seemed uniformly
to be meeting with a very fair measure of success, for one
could not but conclude that the industry as a whole was in
a prosperous condition and had healthily and stably
recovered from the great depression that lay upon it as
recently as fifteen years earlier. Our views were doubtless
coloured by the fact that we almost inevitably saw one of
the leading farmers in each district we visited, and, again,
did not meet with the number of other men who, from
lack of business aptitude or some initial handicap, were
still struggling desperately to make both ends meet.

22 Agriculture and the Community.

Still, we concluded that farming was in a good way and
was yielding a fair return upon the capital embarked in
it, though it was never likely to lead to a fortune. Of this
prosperity the best external evidence was that we could
very rarely hear of any farms to be let, while in every part
of the country the good farms were bespoken long before
they came into the market. Rents, too, were rising; we
heard over and over again of re-letting at an increased
figure, especially where the farms had been put up for
competition. We even heard of one or two cases of rent
having been raised on a sitting tenant, and no landlord
or agent would incur the unpopularity of such an action
unless he had very solid grounds for supposing that it was
justified." In the same book (p. 431), writing two years
later, he says, " We must recognise that the industry is
at present sound and prosperous."

This view of the economic position of the industry as
a whole, which is held by those most competent to judge,
may be set against the ingrained pessimism of the farmers.
It entitles us to say that the failure of the industry to
make effective use of the land, is not to be explained by
reference to the alleged unremunerative character of the
industry. That there is such failure, is common ground
with those entitled to judge. Lord Milner, who was
chairman of the Departmental Committee on Food
Production in 191 5, summed up his impression of
agriculture in England in the evidence he gave before the
Selborne Committee. " He had arrived at a profound
conviction that the land of England was very much under-
cultivated and would richly repay a far more liberal

The Organisation oj the Indusir]). 23

application of capital and labour to its development,
notwithstanding that some portions were as highly farmed
as any land in the world." Lord Ernie, writing in 1912
("English Farming," p. 401), said: — "Thousands of
acres of tillage and grass land are comparatively wasted,
underfarmed and undermanned." The opinion of Sir A.
D. Hall, writing in igio (" A Pilgrimage of British
Farming," p. 150), after surveying conditions in many
countries, is as emphatic. " Though the best of these men
still maintain the supremacy of British farming over that
of any other country, nothing is more striking than the
contrast between them and some of their neighbours. In
every district we visited we found good and bad farmers
close together, men w'ho are earning good incomes on one
side of the hedge, and on the other men who are always
in difficulties, who in many cases are only kept going
through the tolerance of their landlords. Sometimes a
man always manages to scrape his rent together, but he
lives miserably, his farm is an eyesore and a source of
weeds and infection to his neighbours. As a rule these
backward men are not unacquainted with the art of
farming ; they know how it should be done, and can be
very critical of other people's management, especially of
a college or county council farm near them. What they
lack is determination, the ability to organize their labour
and to manage their business ; they are not ignorant but
slipshod." In the preface to his book, " Agriculture After
the War," he writes, " Some of my friends will consider
that I have been unjust to the farmers of the country, and
will refuse to accept my assurance that they are among the
minority whose standard of work I desire to see universal. "

24 Agriculture and the Community.

He develops his argument fully in the book (pp. 26, 2y).
" It should be remembered also that the majority of
farmers regard their occupation as providing a living
rather than as a means of making money which can be
extended and developed. They accept their routine as
something inevitable, not susceptible of change — to alter
would be ' bad farming, ' whatever the results ; if times
are good there is more money to be saved or put aside,
but they do not feel called upon to respond to the new
opportunities and enlarge their business. They are doing
very well as they are, and are not prepared to change from
their policy of safety except under pressure. We have in
all considerations of agriculture to reckon with the
temperament and equipment of the men who are actually
holding the bulk of British land at the present moment.
Speaking generally, it is not too much to say that they
are insufficiently educated and short of capital for the
business they have in hand. Putting aside a substantial
minority and many brilliant exceptions, they have not been
touched by the revival of agricultural education that has
taken place during the last twenty years and do not take
advantage of the technical assistance that is now at their
service. Most of all, their business training is at fault;
they often are capable enough craftsmen, but they are
bound within a narrow routine and show no adaptability
either in their management or in their buying and selling.
On the average farm the expert cannot say * do this ' or
' use that ' and success will ensue ; he sees instead a
general low level both of knowledge and management.
In every district certain farms stand out ; and if the

The Organisation oj the Industry. 25

neighbouring holdings, with the same class of land and the
same opportunities, were only worked with equal
intelligence and energy there would be no agricultural
problem to discuss. In many parts of the country it is
clear that the farmer is occupying more land than he can
properly manage with the capital at his disposal."

We may sum up the position of farming in this country,
up to the outbreak of war, by saying that the industry had
surmounted the crisis of the period 1 880-1 goo and was
offering encouraging returns to the enterprising and skilful
farmers ; that a minority of farmers were making good
use of their opportunities and had little to learn in the
conduct of their farms, but the majority of the farmers
were failing to make use of their opportunities and were
handling their land in a way that was a distinct loss to
the community. The general level of farming in Scotland
was higher than in England (" Pilgrimage of British
Farming," p. 151), although rents and wages were higher.

It is probably true of every industry that there is a wide
difference in efficiency between the various units engaged
in it, but the proportion of inefficients is much greater in
agriculture than in any other industry. In two very
important directions agriculture is peculiar. A large
number of farmers look upon farming as a way of living
rather than as a business. They are content to scrape
along, if they can make ends meet. The old ways satisfy
them so long as they can just pull through. To develop
their business means the exercise of continuous care and
the taking of risks ; the unenterprising way is easier if less
remunerative. In far too many cases they have neither
the skill nor the capacity for conducting the industry on

26 Agriculture and the Community.

modern lines and from their own personal point of view
are taking the safest line in working their land as they
do. If they attempted to strike out in a more enterprising
way, they would probably lose the insufficient capital they
have and make shipwreck. In any other industry the
ordinary economic forces would come into play and the
ineflficients would be crushed out by their more successful
competitors capturing the markets from them. But in
agriculture the ordinary play of economic forces does not
act so freely. Land is limited, and so long as a farmer
is able to scrape such a return as satisfies him, he may
remain in possession of his farm. We have seen that the
landowners do not handle their estates as agricultural
businesses and are content to leave inefficient farmers in
possession so long as the rents are paid. That these two
tendencies are potent factors in the maintenance of a large
number of inefficient farmers in control of large areas of
land in this country, is widely accepted. In the Corn
Production Act and in the Agriculture Act passed last
year the existence of these farmers is recognised, and the
failure of the owners of land to deal with them is implicit
in the powers given to statutory bodies to enforce a
standard of good husbandry, although it may be doubted
whether the powers are likely to be used, or found
effective in use.

Such was the position of farming up to the outbreak
of war. Under the stimulus of high profits, and the
pressure of the authorities exercising the powers under the
Defence of the Realm Acts, the industry improved its
output in spite of difficulties due to shortage of labour, of
implements, and of fertilisers. The worst of the farmers

The Organisation oj the Industry. 27

found themselves compelled to cultivate their land, and
to improve their methods. Those who were short of
capital found that difficulty disappearing", and the farmers
began to amass surplus profits which an indulgent govern-
ment refrained from taxing. Such a time of general
prosperity amongst farmers had not been known within
the memory of men engaged in the industry. It might
have been expected that confidence in the industry would
have grown, but farmers are born pessimists, and as prices
and profits rose, they kept their eyes firmly fixed on rising
costs and wages, and looked forward with doleful fore-
boding to the ruin they were sure would overtake them
very soon. So little confidence had they in their industry
that they refused to carry on unless the Government
guaranteed them against loss in growing wheat and oats.
That demand I shall discuss later. I refer to it here,
because I think it will be obvious that those men who
failed to respond to the improving conditions in the
industry in the stable years before the war are not at all
likely to show any enterprise in the unstable and trouble-
some years ahead. The less efficient a farmer is, the more
pessimistic is he likely to be, and I see nothing in the
changed conditions brought about by the vi'ar that would
lead us to hope that the low level of farming general before
the war will disappear in the years ahead unless some direct
method of dealing with the inefficients is devised.

The Farm Worker.

The agricultural worker cannot complain that he has
been neglected in recent years. A whole library has grown
up around him. He has been investigated by commis-

28 Agriculture and the Community).

sioners, studied by committees, written up by journalists,
explained by authors, and discovered by politicians. All
sorts of people have been afflicted with the itch for doing
something- for him, but most of them seem desperately
afraid that he will do something- for himself which may
not fit in with their pet schemes. He has been taken in
hand, but the desire is strong that he will be kept well in
hand. It is not surprising that after a century of neglect
he is rather bewildered by the multitude of counsellors.

It is not my intention to add to the highly coloured
pages describing his harrowing lot. Rather would I enter
a caveat against much that has been written. Most writers
have dealt only with the agricultural worker in the Mid-
lands and South of England, where farming has been
least prog-ressive and the conditions of the workers have
been worse than in other parts of Britain. The result has
been that an unbalanced picture of the conditions of the
farm workers has been generally presented. Nor is it
wise to compare wage rates in agriculture with rates
obtaining in industrial occupations, unless the very
different social conditions are kept in mind. Above all,
we should be very sceptical of the studies of " Hodge."
Some are written by sentimental people in search of the
simple life ; others are merely the literary exercises of
writers in search of a fresh subject ; few are the work of
writers with any understanding of the people they write
about. The rural worker is reserved and uncommunicative
and does not lend himself to providing material for ready
writers hurrying to catch a public while the boom is on.

The picture we are often invited to become tearful over
is that of a home-loving people rooted in the soil, driven

The Organisation oj the Industry. 29

from the land ag-ainst their will. It may be that my
outlook is coloured by an intimate knowledge of the Scots
farm worker who is given to seeking his fortune in the
ends of the earth, and who is never sentimental about his
birthplace until he is safely settled many miles away from
it, but I fail to find any evidence of this attachment to the
land, and I would point for confirmation of my belief to
the fact that the problem of maintaining a rural population
is common to every settled land, and is appearing in the
New World, and in our colonies. It is a tendency every
civilised community endeavours to counteract by legislation.
Man is a gregarious animal ; he wants to be where the
pulse of life beats most rapidly, where there are more
prizes in life, even if the chances of gaining them are very
remote. Against this tendency agriculture will always
have to struggle, and the best it can hope to do will be
to reduce the handicap under which it labours at present.
In this country the conditions of the agricultural
workers have been such as to force the pace of rural
depopulation. Wages have been so low in some districts
as to constitute a grave social danger ; in the better-paid
districts they have been less than would induce the more
vigorous and enterprising workers to remain in the
industry. But wages were only one of the factors, and in
many districts not the most important factor. Housing
conditions contributed their share to the exodus from the
land. The number of houses available fell far short of
the requirements of the industry in many districts, while
the condition of the houses in existence was in the majority
of cases below any reasonable standard of human
habitation.

30 Agriculture and the Community).

But low wages and bad housing were not unknown in
the towns, and I think it would be found that many of the
farm workers who left the country earned little more at
the end of the year in the town or lived in any better
houses than they had in the country. Other causes peculiar
to the country operated to send the workers away from
the farms. I believe that one potent cause was the tied
house. A man who lives in a house directly under the eye
of his employer, and whose home as well as his employ-
ment is at the mercy of that employer, has less freedom
and has to submit more to the will of his employer than
a workman who comes under his employer's control only
while at work. The employer dominates the workmen
not only industrially but socially and politically. There
may be no direct pressure exercised, but the relationship
is one under which any man of spirit and independence
chafes, and from which he seeks the first opportunity of
escaping. Other workers such as the miners live under
similar conditions, but the aggregation of these workers
in larger communities makes if: easier to develop a com-
munal and class spirit which forms a protection against
the encroachments of individual employers. The farm
workers had not the same opportunities of creating their
own associations for defensive purposes in which they
could feel the consciousness of a common strength and
purpose. Faced with similar difficulties the industrial
workers found their escape in the growth of the trade
unions, co-operative societies, and other voluntary
organisations. They threw up their own leaders and the
most vigorous and spirited of their class found in these
organisations an outlet for their energies and abilities

The Organisation oj the Industry). 31

which kept them in their class, and gave a new hope and
purpose to the whole of their fellows. In agriculture there
was no such outlet for the natural leaders. Scattered as
they were, working- long hours with little leisure, too poor
to pay the necessary contributions to maintain such
organisations even if the initial difficulties could be over-
come, those who ought to have been the natural leaders
of their class had perforce to seek other occupations. By
their very circumstances the farm workers were unable
to take the same means as other workers to lift themselves
out of the pit into which they had fallen. Several
despairing efforts they did make, but it was easy for the
farmers to mark down the leaders and quietly but none the
less effectively to make it impossible for them to gain a
living. It was a difficult matter to create such a spirit in
the rural districts as would prevent victimisation. When
everyone's movements are known to all in the neighbour-
hood, the rural agitator did not require to be blacklisted
to close employment to him. He soon found that the
country was no place for agitators.

To this lack of freedom driving away the most spirited
and independent of the workers we must add the lack of
opportunities for the families of farm workers. Parents
who had families growing up and wished to give them
opportunities for a better life than they had, found that
the country was no place for those who wanted to do well
by their families. Educational facilities as a rule were
not good, and if any of the children bade fair to rise above
the average level there were no openings for them. Thus
it happened that the parents who took their responsibilities
to their families most seriously would not stay on the

32 Agriculture and the Community}.

land. When, therefore, farmers complained that the best
workers were leaving the land, and that they were left
with less efficient workers, they were merely stating- the
effect of the conditions under which the workers had to
live and work. Where wages were lowest the labour was
least efficient, and was most wastefully used simply
because it was cheap. Low wages and poor farming went
hand in hand. Where wages were higher the labour was
more economically handled, and the workers were more
skilful and productive. But everywhere in greater or less
degree the complaint was the same and was well founded,
that the best workers would not remain on the farms.

There were signs in the years before the outbreak of
war that the farm workers had been influenced by the
forces which were then at work producing what was known
as the Labour Unrest. Trade L^nionism, which had died
out after Arch's effort in England, revived in Norfolk in
1907, and in 19 13 and 1914 there were a number of strikes
and general demands for increased wages. In Scotland a
spontaneous movement arose in 191 2, and organisation
proceeded apace, the demand for a weekly half-holiday
being the chief rallying point. There was a slight rise in
wages in most counties.

The first year of war brought rising prices, much to the
profit of the farmer, but greatly to the loss of the workers.
The second year of war brought even greater profit to the
farmers, but the workers found it more than they could
achieve to secure such increases in their wages as would
enable them to meet the rising prices. In 1916 the
pressure of rising prices provided the necessary stimulus
to the workers, while the demands of the army lessened

The Organisation oj the Industry. 33

the supply of labour at the time when the farmers were
being- urg-ed to increase their cultivation. They seized the
favourable opportunity ; the unions increased their
membership and were able to secure substantial increases
in wages. Next year Parliament passed the Corn Pro-
duction Act, under which minimum rates are fixed for
agricultural workers. In England the efforts of the
Unions were directed to getting the most out of the
machinery provided by the Act ; in Scotland the workers,
except in a few outlying counties, relied upon their own
efforts and made their agreements independently of the
Wages Committees, for rates substantially above the
minimum rates. At the present time about fifty per cent,
of the workers are members of the unions.

How far there has been a real gain in the standard of
living of the workers it is difficult to estimate by precise
standards. The depreciation of the sovereign and the
variations in prices make any exact comparison impos-
sible. In England at the present time the minimum rates
for adult workers, which tend to become the standard,
vary from 46/- to 50/6 including the values of all benefits
and allowances. In Scotland the actual rates paid to
ploughmen vary from £2 5/- to ,^3 5/- a week, the largest
number of workers being grouped round £2 15/-. In
comparing these rates with those paid to other workers,
it ought to be kept in view that many of the workmen are
paid partly in benefits and allowances which are reckoned
at wholesale prices, and that house rent in England is
reckoned at 3/- a week and in Scotland generally at 2/-
a week. In England the normal working week is 50 hours
in summer and 48 hours in winter ; in Scotland the working

34 Agriculture and the Comrr^unit^.

week, including- attendance on animals, averages about 56
hours a week.

While it is not possible to measure the exact improve-
ment in the standard of living of the workers, there can
be no question but that there has been an improvement
over the pre-war standard. Wages on the whole, allowing
for the increased prices, are better, while the reduction in
the working hours and the provision of a weekly half-
holiday are a big advance on anything previously existing.
The greatest change has taken place, however, in the
spirit and outlook of the workers. The efforts they have
put forward and the successes they have achieved, have
given a new hope and developed a self respect that have
altered the whole outlook of the rural workers. The old
fatalistic indifference is rapidly disappearing. The workers
have found themselves. They are developing their own
leaders, are becoming conscious of their power, and are
linking themselves up with the larger working-class
movement.

II.
Some Present -Day Policies.

Guaranteed Prices.

I have endeavoured to describe the position of the three
classes most directly concerned in agriculture in this
country, because in any consideration of the future of
agriculture we must take account of the forces at present
at work. The position is a very unstable one. Everything
points to the landowners finding their dif^culties increasing
rather than disappearing. Their increasing anxiety to get
rid of their estates shows quite clearly that they have no
hope of being able to retrieve their position. This is bound
to react on the farmers who are in need of improved
equipment in the way of buildings, drainage, etc. The
farmers are finding that the return to more normal con-
ditions in the world market will expose them anew to the
competition of the agricultural produce of all the world.
They cannot hope to see again the protected markets the
War secured to them. Already they have suffered the first
shock of falling prices, and prone to pessimism at all
times, they are ready to believe the worst. At the same
time they are conscious that they have to face a new spirit
and power in the workers, and that it will not be possible
for them to return to the old conditions of labour. Their
problem is how to conduct their industry faced with
competition from abroad, and forced by combination
amongst the workers and by legislation to observe con-

35

36 Agriculture and the Communit}).

ditions of wages and employment which prevent them
from escaping- by the old method of reducing wages.

The farmers have not lost any time in putting forward
their demands. Mr. James Donaldson, giving evidence
before the Royal Commission on Agriculture, 1919, on
behalf of the National Farmers' Union of England, put
what he declared were the alternatives. If the farmers
were to be left to their own resources to face the future,
without guarantees or protection, and without legal
restrictions on the wages they paid, they could adapt
themselves to the position and carry on, but it would be
by avoiding intensive cultivation and by laying land down
to grass. " The remedy for low prices is the reduction
of costs and the reduction of output," he said. Pro-
duction and employment would be reduced. " If it is the
wish of the nation that the farmer should maintain and
develop his output, whilst, at the same time meeting the
reasonable demands of labour, the nation must see to it
that when he has taken all possible steps to organise his
business, so that wasteful and inefficient methods are
eliminated, he can then get a fair return on his capital,
having regard to the vicissitudes to which agricultural
enterprise is peculiarly liable."

There is no evidence to show that the farmers ever
considered the alternatives. They concentrated on the
demand for guarantees and have been successful for the
time being in imposing their policy on the country. They
have been guaranteed prices for wheat and oats, but not
on the conditions laid down by Mr. Donaldson. There is
no corresponding obligation to grow wheat and oats, nor
any obligation on the farmers to maintain and increase

Some Present-Day) Policies. 37

their output or to get rid of wasteful and inefficient
methods. Power is given to the Agricultural Executive
Committees to require that the farmers will observe the
rules of good husbandry, but that obligation cannot be
related to the guarantees on wheat and oats, because the
obligation can be enforced equally on farmers who depend
upon other crops, and it is obviously within the rights of
the State to insist on this rule whether guarantees are
given or withheld.

The case for guaranteed prices during- the War could
be legitimately argued, when the farmers were being
compelled to grow cereals. If the State is to compel the
cultivation of particular crops the farmer is entitled to
claim that he should be relieved of any loss incurred by
following a policy forced upon him. But when the farmers
demand and are granted guarantees on certain crops
without any oblig-ation to grow these crops, the policy
must be defended on other g-rounds. Two reasons are
advanced by the advocates of guarantees. The first is
that since the farmer is compelled to pay a minimum wage
he is entitled to have a price guaranteed. The argument
is not well founded. Minimum wages are enforced in other
industries but no guarantee of prices is given, and the
farmer cannot claim that his position is peculiar in this
respect. The minimum wages in agriculture apply equally
to all farmers, milk, beef, and potato producers, and if
the argument is sound for cereal g-rowers, as good a claim
can be made out for the other farmers. How little relation
there is between the wages of farm workers and prices of
agricultural produce, and particularly cereal prices, has
been shown by Mr. A. W. Ashby in a paper contributed

^n^-^/ifif^

38 Agriculture and the Community).

to the " Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of
Eng-land " (Vol. 80, 1919) entitled " Prices of Farm
Produce and Wages of Farm Workers."

The second argument advanced is that the guarantees
are necessary to give confidence to the farmers in a time
of transition. If the guarantees were meant to be
temporary this argument would have the virtue of honesty
whatever our opinion of its merits might be, but the
demand has been for a permanent guarantee, and the
Agriculture Act was passed on that basis. The logic of
the argument is that the farmers have no confidence in
tillage in this country unless backed by the taxpayer, and
the situation has to be considered in the light of that
confession of lack of faith on the part of the farmers.

At any other time it would not have been possible to
have imposed such a policy on the country. In the welter
and confusion of war-made policies, strange things have
happened which only the war-time atmosphere has made
possible. But that private traders should be left free to
pursue their own interests, and to secure their profits
when the industry allows them, and then fall back on the
State to shoulder the losses, is a method of conducting
industry that no community in normal times will tolerate.
Nor do I find that farmers with any pretensions to breadth
of outlook have any more confidence in the future because
of the guaranteed policy. Apart from the fact that they
have no belief that the guarantees in themselves will
achieve their avowed purpose they realise that a policy
dependent on the exigencies of party political warfare, in
a country that is bound to remain predominantly indus-
trial, with a large population averse to such a policy, is

Some Present-Da'^ Policies. 39

an even less secure basis than the chances of the market.
The proof is to be found in the fact that the guarantees
have done nothing to maintain the increased cultivation
enforced during the War. No farmer who knows his
business is going to plan his operations ahead on the
confidence engendered by a policy of guaranteed prices
for wheat and oats.

Not only do I believe that the policy of guarantees will
fail to achieve its avowed object of giving such confidence
to the farmers as will induce them to continue cultivation
on the strength of its promises, but I believe it is positively
harmful to the industry. It is meant to stereotype the
present organisation of the industry, and that organisation
I believe to be incapable of facing successfully the problems
w^hich confront it. It is like an attempt to shore up a
falling building with timber props. To endeavour to carry
on an industry that is not making adequate use of its
productive forces by maintaining artificial price levels,
cannot be made a permanent and sound policy in any
industry. If the agricultural industry cannot be made to
stand on its own feet, under the present organisation, no
State crutches will enable it to keep erect and make pro-
gress. The policy of guaranteed prices carries with it
no promise of increased efficiency, and no power to enforce
better methods. Rather does it tend the other way. It
leads farmers to concentrate all their efforts on the
maintenance of artificial prices when they should be
turning all their energies to reducing costs and increasing
output. " In 1907 it was estimated that the value of the
annual production of British agriculture amounted to only
;^go per person engaged. The output per man in many

40 Agriculture and the Community.

other industries amounted to a much higher figure. The
average for all industries in England and Wales, including
those in which over 50 per cent, of the employees are
women, in which production is low, was £10^. In some
industries the value of production per person amounted to
nearly ;(^2oo per annum." (" The Position of the Rural
Worker in Industry," A. W. Ashby.) Unless the pro-
ductive value of labour in agriculture can be effectively
increased there can be no sound basis for building a
progressive industry.

There is a grave social danger too in the sentimental
association of prices and wages in agriculture. Quite a
number of well-meaning persons, whose emotions are
more easily stirred than their brains, are eager to sub-
sidise farming in order to secure the labourer's wages.
They see no way of protecting the worker against low
wages except by a legal minimum, and they are quite
ready to give the farmers a guarantee of prices which will
enable them to pay the rates enforced. The farmers are
not slow to point out what they believe is the necessary
connection, and from time to time proposals are mooted
for an inclusive union of farmers and workers to promote
the common interest. The policy would be disastrous to
the workers. Their standard of living would depend upon
the political power of the agricultural vote in a Parliament
which is bound to be elected from predominantly industrial
electors. Success would mean a permanently subsidised
industry which would necessarily be an unprogressive
industry, more intent on farming votes than on cultivating
the land. There might be an immediate gain to those
engaged in the industry at the expense of the general

Some Present-Da}) Policies. 41

community, but in the long run this policy would over-
reach itself and break down. But it is too much to expect
success in such an offensive against the community. It
would fail and it would deserve to fail. The power of the
workers to maintain a standard of living in any capitalist
industry depends in the long run on the output per person
employed in the industry, and no policy which does not
secure a steady improvement in the productive power of
those engaged in the industry can offer any hope of a
progressive improvement to the wage-earners.

Security of Tenure.

There has been a revival in recent years of the demand
for security of tenure by farmers and for judicial rents.
That demand is always keenest when the industry is
prosperous and good profits are being made. The enter-
prising farmers know the danger of rents being raised
against them, and are afraid to plan a course of
cultivation, the fruits of which they have no security of
reaping. That the danger is a real one has been recognised
by the compensation clauses of the Agricultural Holdings
Acts, and by the Agriculture Act, 1920. These provide
compensation to a way-going tenant for certain scheduled
improvements, and additional compensation is now pro-
vided for unreasonable disturbance. But these provisions
do not wholly protect the really good farmers. They claim
that there is no provision to secure to them the full value
of continuous good farming, and no practical scheme has
yet been devised which will give adequate compensation
for the cumulative fertility arising from their expenditure
and skill. All the leerislative devices so far fall short of

42 Agriculture and the Community.

the desired end. They are of the nature of compromises,
and do not meet the full claim of the farmers. The demand
has been strengthened in the past few years by the large
number of agricultural holdings which have been changing
owners. Many farmers, much against their better
judgment, have been compelled to purchase their farms
because they saw no other way of retaining occupation.
The avowed intention of many owners to get rid of their
land has intensified this feeling of insecurity. The farmers
do not want to become owners. Most of them have not
the necessary money to buy the land, and at the same time
provide the working capital for farming. They have no
confidence that the new owners who are securing posession
of the land have any intention of developing their estates
as agricultural subjects or that they have the necessary
knowledge or training to do so, even if that were their
intention.

The demand for security of tenure and for judicial rents
is reasonable and ought to be supported by the community
within limits, so long as the system of tenant farming is
continued. The security cannot be absolute ; it ought not
to become fixity of tenure. It ought to be subject to the
right of the community to insist on a standard of
cultivation, and only those farmers who are making good
use of their land should be granted security. But within
these limits the best farmers would readily respond to the
better opportunities confronting them, and their example
would set a steadily improving standard for farming to
which the less enterprising could be compelled to conform
or they would find the pressure exercised to the point of
turning them out of their holdings. Security of tenure

Some Present-Da^ Policies. 43

Is incompatible with competitive rents, which have not
been a source of strength to agriculture, but the reverse.
Machinery would have to be devised for fixing rents. We
have had experience in Scotland for the past ten years of
security of tenure and fair rents for holdings under 50
acres or ;^^o rent and the system has worked well. There
is no reason why the system should not be extended to all
holdings, and the machinery of the Land Court could be
extended to deal with all holdings and similar arrange-
ments made for England and Wales. When a change of
tenancy occurs the value of the tenant's improvements are
assessed at their value to an incoming tenant, and the
disadvantages of free sale and of dual ownership are thus
avoided.

It is not always recognised, however, by the advocates
of security of tenure and judicial rents, that the system
practically puts an end to the system of private ownership
of land as we know it. The owner is left very little control
over the land. He becomes in reality what the landowners
have tended to become in effect for many years past, a
mere receiver of rent, and even then, of rent which he has
little power to influence. The result in Scotland, where
the system has been in operation on small holdings, has
been that the landowners content themselves with drawing
the rents fixed by the Court and shift the burden of pro-
viding the capital for permanent improvements on to the
State. If the larger farmers are given security of tenure
and judicial rents we may expect that the landowners will
be even less inclined to spend money on their estates than
they now are, and that the State will find it necessary to
take up the duty of financing the permanent equipment

44 Agriculture and the Community.

of the land. Everything is tending in that direction at
present. Even the landowners who want to retain
possession of the land and control of the farms are un-
willing or unable to finance the necessary improvements.
They urge that the State ought to lend them money at a
low rate of interest for this purpose. The granting of
security of tenure and judicial rents would merely accelerate
the pace and drive out the private owners more quickly,
and bring the State into the position of taking over the
functions which used to be performed by the owners of
land. As the interest of the State would be the develop-
ment of the industry the change would be all to the good,
although the result would have far-reaching results in our
system of land tenure, and would not be relished by the
more easy-going farmers who prefer an indulgent landlord
who does not make many demands on their industry or
their enterprise.

Occupying Ownership.

I have stated that farmers do not wish to become
owners of their holdings. This may appear to be contro-
verted by the fact that there has been an increase in the
number of occupying owners during the past three years.
That was to be expected. Farmers have enjoyed good
years since the second year of the War, and many of them
are in a position to be able to buy their farms. That a
section of them are desirous of setting up as owners is
probably true, but that, as a class, they do not want to
become owners is clearly shown by the strength of the
demand for security of tenure. It is a well-known fact
that many who have bought have done so because they

Some Present-Da\) Policies. 45

ran the risk of finding- their holdings bought over their
heads by others who wanted to occupy. It will be found
that the demand for security was strongest in those
districts where the greatest increase of occupying owners
occurred. There can be no doubt but that the great
majority of farmers do not wish to become owners.

In spite of the unwillingness of farmers to buy their
farms, the advocates of occupying ownership continue
their efforts to persuade the nation that agriculture can
be developed most satisfactorily on this basis. It is a
hopeless proposition. If there were any indications that
the proposal was likely to become popular it would be
necessary to discuss it seriously, but if I am right in my
reading of the attitude of the farmers it is hardly worth
while to do so. I content myself with saying that I believe
the farmers are serving their own interests best by
demanding security of tenure and avoiding purchase.
Farming has always suffered from lack of adequate
capital, and farmers are wise to conserve their capital for
their industry, and to avoid locking it up in the land. Nor
is there any evidence that occupying owners will make
better use of their land than tenants do. There is nothing
in occupying ownership which would justify us in assuming
that the combination of owner and farmer in one person
would always give us a prudent and capable owner, and
an enterprising and skilful farmer. It would be much
more diflficult for the State to enforce a standard of
cultivation on a large number of independent owners.
Again if the present owners are not able to finance and
manage their estates, and the farmers are often short of
capital, it is hopeless to expect that the farmers can

46 Agriculture and the Community.

adequately finance both the purchase of the land and its
cultivation.

Small Holdings.

Another policy which has many advocates is that of
creating- a large number of small holdings. It is a policy
particularly favoured by politicians. It lends itself to
popular declamation and is easily woven into fine sounding
perorations. The orators do not require to condescend to
practical schemes, nor do they require to show any
working knowledge of the subject. Practical details would
disturb the flow of oratory, and knowledge would nip
frostily the flowers of speech. When these speeches can
be tacked on to the prevailing war emotion and the
schemes can be presented as a means of rewarding war
heroes, the politician can add that touch of virtuous unction
which enables him to resume his seat with a feeling that
he has done something that a grateful country should not
forget. And above all it is a first-class cry for securing
votes, and what more can be said to recommend a policy
to a politician?

It is a policy that appeals to a certain number of farm
workers because it offers them an opportunity of escape
from their dependent position of wage-earners where
avenues to improvement do not exist. It must be remem-
bered that the present organisation of agriculture in this
country offers few prospects of advance to the workers.
A few may hope to rise to positions of bailiffs, foremen or
grieves, but it is not often realised how few these oppor-
tunities are. In the census of 191 1 we find that in England
and Wales 22,141 males were returned as farm bailiffs

Some Present-Da"}) Policies. 47

and foremen out of a total of 665,258 male workers
employed, the proportion being- a little over 3 per cent.
Even these positions bring very little advance in economic
or social position over those of the other workers, and
the positions under those of bailiff or foreman are so little
differentiated in the social and economic scale as to make
little call to ambition. The position of a small holder does
offer more social independence, even if the economic con-
ditions show little or no improvement over those of the
wage earners. It is a more interesting^ life, if more
laborious, and there is always the hope that it may lead
to something better.

But the g-reatest demand for small holdings does not
come from farm workers — a fact that is generally not
recognised by those who talk most about the matter. The
Report on Wages and Conditions of Employment in
Agriculture issued by the Board of Agriculture and
Fisheries in 1919 (Cmd. 24) has an interesting section on
small holdings in England. " In very few counties," the
Report says, " have the Investigators found an unsatisfied
demand for holdings ... In most counties it appears
that the demand, even where it is large, has been satis-
fied." In the same Report interesting information is
given as to the class of persons who apply for small
holdings. " The number of applications received from
farm labourers is small. . . . From statistics published by
the Board of Agriculture it appears that in 1914, of 3322
applications allowing 20 members for each of seven
Associations, 1029 only were agricultural labourers ; that
is to say, 30.9 per cent, were farm labourers. The general
conclusion which the facts seem to warrant is that the

48 Agriculture and the Community.

demand comes from men in industries or non-agricultural
trades — tradesmen, miners, and sailors. In most cases
applicants have made their money not in, but outside
agriculture." The facts here adduced may surprise those
who are fond of talking about the "agricultural ladder,"
the first rungs of which are meant to be small holdings,
but to anyone in close touch with the agricultural workers,
and whose knowledge of the small holdings campaign is
gained at closer quarters than the politicians ever reach,
the conclusions of the investigators are known to be well
founded. The agricultural ladder does not offer an
effective way of escape for the farm worker. It is obvious
why it should be so. A small holder must have possession
of some capital, more than most people imagine, if he is
going to make a successful venture, and the possibility
of farm workers saving the necessary capital from their
inadequate earnings is too remote to stir to effort. Con-
sidered from the point of view of providing a means of
improving the lot of the farm workers, small holdings
offer no hopeful line of advance. Even if the obstacles
Avhich have tended to discourage the farm workers from
seeking that way of escape in the past could be removed,
a little consideration will show that small holdings can
never offer any hope to the large mass of the farm workers.
Even if we include in the number of small holdings those
which cannot occupy a man full time, and which are used
to supplement earnings in other directions, and suppose
that they are all occupied by those who are or have been
farm workers, a supposition very wide of the mark, not
more than 4 per cent, of farm workers have been given
the opportunity of becoming small holders. Mr. Arthur

Some Present-Da]) Policies. 49

W. Ashby, who has given more practical and detailed
study to this question than anyone else, points out that
even allowing only 25 acres to each family, an area which
I believe is much too limited in this country, nearly half
the area of England and Wales would be required to
provide holdings for the 500,000 men over 20 years of age
employed in agriculture. " It is, however," he adds,
"almost impossible to imagine the establishment of even
100,000 holdings, and such a miracle would still leave the
rural workers without any solution of their general
problems."

Small holdings are advocated, however, on more general
grounds. It is contended that the small holder cultivates
the land more intensively than the large farmer, and that,
if the nation wants an increased production from the land,
it can be secured by increasing the number of small
holdings. This is one of the sweeping generalisations
often made about agriculture without any data being
produced to substantiate it. The best managed small
holdings are contrasted with the indifferently cultivated
farms, or small holdings in favourable situations near
towns are compared with farms in more remote districts.
If a comparison is made between small and large holdings
producing the same crops, it will be difficult to show that
the small holding produces more per acre. Probably the
best summing up on small holdings from the productive
standpoint is that of Sir A. D. Hall ("Agriculture After
the War," pp. 54 and 55).

" In themselves, small holdings are necessarily un-
economical units for dealing with land. Most farming
operations become much cheaper when carried out on a

5° Agriculture and the Community).

large scale ; the use of machinery is only profitable on
larg-e fields and when the machine can be given a full
measure of work in proportion to its cost. The large
farmer is more likely to apply science and bring knowledge
to his business; the small holder must be conservative in
his methods, and generally becomes very unprogressive.
Though the personal attention that the small holder can
give to details may be supposed to be of special value in
the handling of milch cows, the management of fruit, etc.,
in practice the organization at the command of the farmer
on a large scale secures an equal or a better result. It is
true to say that in districts where intensive cultivation
is practised by both small and large occupiers, the actual
cultivation is better, the gross production and the net
profits are larger upon the holdings of 50 to 100 acres
than upon those of from 5 to 20 acres. In fact, the really
good small holder soon gets possession of a larger acreage
and ceases to be a small holder.

It follows that small holdings are only likely to answer
for such forms of agriculture as produce a large gross
return per acre, and when the proportion that manual
labour bears to the other costs of production is high. This
almost confines successful small holding to the production
of vegetables, fruit, and flowers ; as regards the production
of meat and corn, and to some extent milk, the small
holder cannot compete with the large. It is doubtful
whether the market for fruit and vegetables is capable of
considerable expansion. Akin to this restriction is the
fact that small holdings only answer on good land, or at
any rate on light land that is responsive to fertilizers and

Some Present-Da^ Policies. 51

easily worked. They must also have good access to
markets."

What is generally overlooked in considering- the pro-
ductivity of small holdings is the economic cost involved.
The small holder as a rule works harder than the agricul-
tural labourer, and he works longer hours. The women
and children have also to work. If there were any means
of comparing the labour cost of the production of small
holdings, it is incontrovertible that in terms of human
labour the production on small holdings is more costly
than on large. The small holder works with less capital,
for if he had more he would not be a small holder. He
cannot economically employ labour-saving machinery.
He has to produce his returns by the intensive application
of human labour, and I submit that from the wider stand-
point that is not the most productive use to make of human
labour. The progress of civilisation depends on increasing
the production of wealth per unit of human labour em-
ployed. It is only thus that the necessary surplus can
become available for a richer life for the whole community.

That this radical defect of the system of small holdings
is recognised is shown by the effort to create colonies of
small holdings, so that the occupiers may co-operate in
the use of labour-saving machinery, and in buying and
selling. The difficulties are not to be waived aside by
reference to what is done in Denmark, by a people com-
pelled by the lack of indutrial resources to make the most
of agriculture, working under conditions of soil and
climate much more homogeneous than in this country,
and working for an export market, in milk, pig, and
poultry products. The conditions are vastly different.

52

Agriculture and the Community.

But even if the difficulties could be overcome, all that the
most enthusiastic advocate of co-operation will claim is
that the small holder by co-operation may lessen his
handicap ag-ainst the large farmer working with ample
capital.

The advocates of small holdings do not rest their case,
however, on the productive advantages of the smaller unit.
If they did so it would be very difficult for them to explain
why it is that in spite of the efforts of Parliament small
holdings do not increase. Two tables from the Agricul-
tural Statistics, 1919 (Cmd. 680) are instructive : —

Number of Holdings in England and Wales, 1919.

Year.

Above I

and not

exceeding

5 Acres.

Above 5

and not

exceeding

50 Acres.

Above 50

and not

exceeding

300 Acres.

Above
300 Acres.

Total.

1903

91,797

198,874

126,980

15,351

433,002

1 90S

89,958

197,218

127,864

15,041

430,081

1913

92,302

200,144

128,718

14,513

435,677

1914

91,570

200,152

128,989

14,413

435.124

1915

90,643

199,046

129,337

14,327

433,353

1916

87,502

196,651

130,140

14,132

428,425

1917

84,264

194,292

131,064

14,098

423,718

1918

83,392

191,942

130,666

14,126

420,126

1919

81,193

191,375

130,225

13,875

416,668

Some Present-Da^ Policies.

53

The Changes in Each Group of Holdings between
1913 and 1919.

Number.

Total Area.

Average Size.

Size of

Holding.

1913

1919

1913

1919

1913

1919

Thousands
of Acres.

Thousands
of Acres.

Acres.

Acres.

I — 5 Acres.

92,302

81,193

284.9

252.9

3-1

3-1

5-20

122,117

113,414

1,373-3

1,279.0

"•3

II-3

20—50 ,,

78,027

77,961

2,623.3

2,618.9

33-6

336

50— ICO „

59.287

60,509

4,324-7

4,406.8

72.9

72.8

ICO — 150 ,,

31,838

32,358

3,942.2

3,997-0

123.8

123s

150—300 ,,

37,593

37,358

7,844.2

7,795-5

208.7

208.7

Above 300 , ,

14,513

13,875

6,736.8

6,397.8

464.2

461. 1

435,677

416,668

27,129.4

26,747-9

62.3

64.2

These tables do not show that the advantage lies with
small holdings or that under competitive conditions the
small holder can hold his own. If he could there would
not be any necessity for special legislation, nor for the
expenditure of public funds in creating small holdings.
The resort to direct subsidy of small holdings by the State
is not defended on economic grounds. It is justified from
the standpoint that it is in the best interests of the nation

54 Agriculture and the Community.

that there should be a larger number of people settled on
the land. It is acknowledg-ed that the policy is one which
can only be pursued if the nation is prepared to subsidise
the establishment of small holders. The policy is justified
on social and political grounds and not for agricultural or
economic reasons.

There will be general agreement that it is desirable to
increase the rural population. If the standard of living
is a reasonable one, and the opportunities for education
and social life are adequate, a rural population provides a
more stable element in the national life than the more
hectic conditions of life in the large industrial centres. But
the standard of living in the rural districts must depend
in the long run on the economic use made of the labour
of the people. The possibility of wider education and
deeper culture, as distinguished from the mere elementary
schooling to which we are apt to confine the term education,
depends on conditions of employment which permit of
adequate leisure. A real social life can only develop fully
in a community where the conditions of life permit of free
intercourse of men, women and young people with leisure
in which they can develop the arts and graces of life. All
small holding communities are overworked communities.
They can exist only by excessive labour of men, women
and children. Thrift becomes a vice because the petty
economies must be hourly observed. They emphasise the
meaner, more selfish aspects of human intercourse. The
members can never be free from the anxieties and worries
of people living near the margin, to whom losses, com-
paratively trifling from the point of view of the community,
may bring disaster. Under competitive conditions in this

Some Present-Day) Policies. 55

country the small holder must always be too self-centred
to become a good citizen or the stuff from which a healthy
rural community can be created.

III.
A National Policy.

The Need for Change.

I have endeavoured to describe the present position of
the agricultural industry in this country, and I have out-
lined and criticised the proposals usually made for placing-
it on a sounder basis. It may be useful if I summarise
before discussing further proposals.

Agriculture in this country is less productive than it
ought to be because the owners of land are not primarily
concerned in promoting the industry. They have failed
to maintain the permanent equipment, or to manage the
land so as to enable the competent farmers to make the
best use of it, or to prevent the incompetent farmers from
wasting land. The landowners admit their inability to
improve their position. There is a minority of farmers
who are equal to the best in any country, and who, given
proper opportunities, would do even better. A large
proportion, from various causes, are farming the land
indifferently. Many of them would probably do much
better given greater security, but they are too prone to
play for safety and to be content with the surer and smaller
returns. A considerable minority are frankly hopeless
and ought not to be allowed to occupy land. The farm
workers by organisation and legal enactment have secured
an improved standard of existence, but the standard is
not yet sufficiently attractive to withstand the competition

56

A National Policy. 57

of other Industries, or to retain the best of the workers.
They are faced with the practical problem of how to con-
tinue to improve the standard within the very definite
limits of the economic power of the industry as at present
conducted.

The measures taken to give greater security for the
farmers' capital, and for compensation for disturbance,
do not go far enough to give confidence to the farmers.
Security of tenure is necessary but would lead to a com-
plete revolution in our system of land tenure, which would
require far-reaching adjustments affecting the whole
structure of the industry. Guaranteed prices for cereals,
ineffective in themselves, cannot in the nature of things
be otherwise than temporary expedients, and are positively
harmful. The establishment of small holdings on a large
scale is practically impossible and economically wasteful.
Occupying ownership is not a practical proposal because
the farmers do not want to buy.

The interest of the community is to get the greatest
possible production from the soil with the loAvest com-
parative expenditure of human labour. That is not being
secured for the reasons outlined above. The national
resources are under-developed because the land is under-
capitalised and under-farmed. The workers are living in
a condition that does not enable them to live as full a life
as they ought to enjoy with our present-day scientific
resources and economic powers. " The end of life is not
the production of more goods ; it is the production of
more and better life."

So far I have been treading familiar ground and I make
no claim to any originality of treatment. All I have

58 Agriculture and the Community.

endeavoured to do has been to bring- together statements
and criticisms which have been common to many writers
and critics, and all of which have been stated more ably
and fully than I can hope to do. If I have been fortunate
enough to carry any readers with me so far, I have now
to ask them to bear with me while I venture on proposals
which must be more speculative, and for which I cannot
quote authorities as I have endeavoured to do so far.
Practically all those who have written or spoken on
agriculture have taken it for granted that the industry is
to develop within the confines of the system of land tenure
as we know it, with slight amendments, and that farming-
will continue to be an affair of private enterprise for
individual capitalists employing- wage-earners, and working-
for a market open to all the vicissitudes of speculation
and unregulated competition. Almost all the changes
advocated in agriculture assume that these conditions will
remain practically unchanged. They merely propose here
and there to interpose collective effort in a timid and
halting- fashion to ameliorate the worst defects of the
present system ; they do not propose any fundamental
change in the system. I do not believe there is any hopeful
future for the industry unless an effort is made to secure
a more drastic reconstruction. For the largest class
directly concerned in the industry, the agricultural workers,
it seems to me evident that the outlook holds little promise
of such changes as will provide a g-ood life if the present
system is maintained much as we know it, however valuable
in themselves some of the reforms suggested may be.
Without radical changes the workers must soon reach the
limit of wages that the industry can bear, and that limit,

A National Policy). 59

on any productive output we can estimate, will never satisfy
the awakening- workers in the rural districts. However
effective the Trade Unions may become, they cannot force
wages beyond the point the industry can bear, and I see
nothing- in the present production of agriculture, nor in
the production we may hope for within the limits of the
present system which will enable the workers to satisfy
their legitimate demands. Nor is there any security in
the fixing- of minimum rates of wages. At best all we
can hope from such legislation is to fix a minimum
standard of human needs which the wages must enable
the worker to satisfy, but how inadequate that standard
may be can be judged from the rates fixed at a time when
the cost of living was mounting against the workers, and
the industry was better able to provide a reasonable
standard than at any previous time. But even more
important than the standard of living considered merely
from the subsistence standpoint is the opportunity the
industry offers for bringing out the latent abilities of the
workers, x-lgriculture makes no such call on the workers
to-day. It is a closed industry, which does not attract
technical or manual workers from other spheres of life.
The workers are born into the industry and seek to escape
from it. It does not offer opportunities, develop the
abilities, or stimulate the ambitions of those engaged in it.
Other industries attract skill and brains by the oppor-
tunities they offer. They draw from all classes, and
welcome ability. Agriculture by its structure and
organisation does not attract, and fails to keep its own.
We require fundamental changes because the present
system is not capable of such changes as will sufficiently

6o Agriculture and the Community.

increase production on economic lines to enable the
workers to improve their position. To ensure this we
must have more capital and sufficient scope to offer
prospects to workers without capital to engage in the
industry on their own behalf. There must be openings
for the young people who are willing to train for the more
responsible technical and scientific branches. There must
be openings for the young people who are willing to
improve their craft and desire to employ their talents in
more specialised positions. We have been training
technical and scientific workers in our agricultural
colleges, but our agricultural industry cannot absorb
them. It makes no appeal to the worker who wants to
be more than a ploughman or a cattleman or a shepherd.
Nor is it likely we can do any better so long as the industry
is a small scale capitalist industry. The higher branches
and the wider opportunities are not open to those who
have ability ; they are the preserve of those who have
capital. We cannot hope to develop a progressive industry
on those lines, and we cannot expect it to attract or retain
the best type of workers, technical or manual.

National Responsibility.

The first condition of any effective change in agriculture
is that the community must take the industry much more
seriously than it has done. It cannot afford any longer
to leave it the play of the economic interests of land-
owners, farmers, and workers. That was the policy of
the second half of the nineteenth century, a natural re-
action from the system of protection of which the Corn
Laws were the most outstanding feature. Very tentatively

A National Policy. 6i

the State moved away from that position. At first the
legislation dealing with the industry merely laid down
rules regulating the relations of owners and tenants, a
form of keeping the ring inside which the conflicting
interests attempted to adjust themselves. Even such
social legislation as dealt with other classes of workers
was not applied to the agricultural workers at first. Then
the State began to interest itself in agricultural research
and demonstration. Considerable sums were spent in
this work, and in agricultural education. Stage by stage
the points at which the State directly influenced agriculture
increased, until now there is no other industry towards
which the State makes such a contribution both in money
and in teaching and research. It is the only industry
which has a Cabinet Minister and a Department solely
devoted to it, and it is not always realised, even by those
engaged in the industry, to what an extent the State does
contribute towards agriculture. Besides research, tech-
nical education and training, provided at the public
expense, w^e have the assistance given by the Development
Commission to promote co-operation, to improve breeding,
and to assist in milk recording and in costing. Merely to
enumerate all the directions in which the public purse is
drawn upon to assist those engaged in agriculture to
pursue the industry more profitably would make a sur-
prisingly long list. The commercial value to the farmers
and landowners of the public assistance given is not
suflficiently recognised by those who benefit most.

I do not think the community gets the return for its
outlay that it ought to get. The industry is making much
greater use now of the facilities provided, and the best

62 Agriculture and the Communit'^.

evidence that it is of real advantage to the farmers is the
demand being made for the extension of public assistance
in various directions. But while the demand on the State
increases, the State has no power to impose any obligation
on the industry to use the methods which research,
demonstration, and practice have proved to be advan-
tageous. In spite of all that has been done to demonstrate
the economy of using artificial manures liberally, the
average consumption in this country shows that the
teaching of the State has failed to affect a large body of
farmers. It has been proved over and over again that
even poor grass land will respond to treatment with
manures, yet much of the grass land is a disgrace to our
agriculture. The wisdom of keeping milk records, and
breeding from good milking strains, has been proved to
be commercially profitable to dairy farmers, yet the output
of milk from our dairy herds continues below what could
easily be achieved if our dairy farmers were using the
knowledge the departments of agriculture are continually
pressing upon them. There is no suggestion that farmers
should be induced to engage in experimental work ; it is
solely a matter of securing that the industry will adopt
the methods that have been proved profitable.

It appears to me essential that the State should assume
more responsibility for the industry. The idea that an
industry succeeds best when left to the enlightened self-
interest of those engaged in it has few followers nowadays.
Those engaged in agriculture have no belief in that theory.
The landlords want State loans ; the farmers demand
security of tenure and guaranteed prices ; the workers
want regulation of working hours, and, in England, a

A National Folic]). 63

legal minimum wage. Each class is prepared to lean upon
the State, however much they may want freedom from
State control, where they believe such freedom will serve
their own interests. The State cannot afford to shoulder
the burden of the industry, and at the same time give up
its right to ensure that the industry is making proper use
of the assistance it gives. The State must be prepared to
take direct action to see that the industry is making proper
use of the national resources, and of the State aid given.

This means that the Ministry of Agriculture in England
and Wales, and the Board of Agriculture in Scotland,
must be given adequate powers to maintain a proper
standard of farming. These departments ought not merely
to be empowered to place their varied services at the
disposal of those engaged in the industry, if the latter see
fit to use them, but should be empowered to see that the
services are being used, and to remove occupiers who are
not prepared to avail themselves of these services, and are
not making such use of the land as the public interest
requires, and to arrange for the farms being worked by
competent managers in the public interest. I shall return
to the methods of administration later. What I am con-
cerned with here is the change in attitude of the State
towards the industry. From being as they are to-day,
departments which act through suggestion and demon-
stration, endeavouring by lecture, leaflet and advice to
get agriculture to adopt certain courses and methods,
these departments would be made responsible for main-
taining a definite standard in the industry.

What I have said of the necessity for enforcing proper
cultivation applies with even greater force to the equip-

64 Agriculture and the Community).

ment and manag-ement of land. It is even more important
to secure that those engaged in the industry are given full
opportunity to make the best use of their skill and capital.
That is not possible to-day on a great many estates. The
system has broken down entirely, and the State must
assume the responsibility if the industry is to progress.
There is no other way. But more is required than merely
to replace the landowners who cannot function as effective
managers of the land. The whole attitude towards the
control and use of land must be altered. We cannot afford
to allow private individuals to control land for their own
purposes irrespective of the interest of the general
community. If we are to make agriculture a successful
industry the control and use of land suitable for that end
must be made the primary object. To' withhold large
tracts of useful land from cultivation merely to provide
amenities for the residences of rich persons is a distinct
loss tO' the community. The partial or complete waste
of land for sporting purposes may be a commercial gain
to the proprietors or a social privilege they value and
are prepared to pay for, but it is nevertheless a loss to
the nation. No' other nation so wastes land as we do in
these directions, and until we are prepared to change our
attitude we cannot be said to take our agricultural industry
seriously.

The logical course to pursue would be to nationalise
the land. No community can be master of its destiny so
long as the soil of the country remains private property.
In every effort we make as a people to bring order and
method out of the chaos and conflict which are the normal
conditions of our social and industrial life, we are brought

A National Policy. 65

up against the difficulties created by private property in
land. The tension increases daily and is felt in many
directions, and it is only a matter of time before the
pressure becomes so great that the logical step has to be
taken. But nationalisation of the land is not merely an
agricultural problem ; it is much wider and involves other
industries, and wider social problems. We cannot, in
agriculture, afford to wait for the land to be nationalised
before we set to work to improve the industry. We must,
however, definitely make up our minds whether or not the
land is to be considered as a national asset in which the
community has the predominant overriding interest, and
before which private interests have to give way. My
contention is that we must proceed frankly on the basis
that we are always to consider agricultural land as the raw
material of the agricultural industry, and that no private
interests are to be allowed to divert it to uses less
advantageous to the community. If we are to allow the
vested interests of private individuals tO' tak'e precedence
of the needs of the community we cannot hope to make any
real progress.

I have stressed the need for an altered attitude towards
our use of land and our conduct of the industry because it
is fundamental to any consideration of the methods to be
adopted in dealing with the industry. There may be room
for differences of opinion as to the best means to be
adopted to attain certain ends in agriculture, but unless
there is common ground in the main purpose we have in
view, there can be little profit in discussing proposals for
administration or organisation. The nation must first will

66 Agriculture and the Communtt\f.

the end it is to work towards. That is a political question
in which the whole nation is involved, and it is not a
question to be settled only by those most directly interested
in the industry. I believe that the nation will be compelled
by force of circumstances to accept responsibility for the
industry, and w^ill set itself to develop agriculture as a
definite public service, and it is in that belief that I put
forward the proposals which follow.

The Administrative Authorities.

If the community is to assume responsibility for the
agricultural industry it must create machinery which will
be capable of exercising effective control. Any suggestions
to this end will at once raise the cry of bureaucracy, and
amongst no class is there greater antipathy to officialdom
than amongst agriculturists. It is natural that this
should be so. There is little organisation in the industry.
It consists of small units worked according to the wills of
a multitude of small capitalists. They are each of them
supreme in their limited spheres, and such officials as
have been appointed, appear to them as extraneous and
unnecessary persons who come in to interfere with the
work of those engaged in the business. Where these
officials can be used to serve the ends of landlords, farmers,
or workers, they are readily accepted, but when they
intervene to serve the ends of the community, they are
objected to as unnecessary, expensive and bureaucratic.
From time to time we have an outcry against the horde
of officials in agriculture, and imposing lists are drawn up,
and the expenditure on the Ministry of Agriculture and

A National Policy. 67

the Board of Agriculture of Scotland, massed together to
show the " waste " of public money. No attempt is made
to classify the officials, to show what different classes of
work are being done, nor to show what the money is being
spent upon. A case may be made out for making better
use of the officials and the expenditure, but the wholesale
denunciation so common, indicates a lack of a sense of
proportion. Relatively to the number of persons engaged
in the industry the number of officials is small. When
comparisons are made with other industries, it should be
remembered that much of the work done for agriculture
by the State is done by the other industries for themselves.
It is because agriculture is carried on as a small scale
industry that the State has had to step in and do' the work
of research, experiment and demonstration, which large-
scale industries do for themselves.

We have been groping towards a scheme of organisa-
tion to give the community a more direct control over
the industry. Working along with the State departments
we have now Agricultural Executive Committees in each
county, representative of the public authorities, landlords,
farmers and workmen. These Committees elect represen-
tatives to Agricultural Councils in England and Scotland,
and these Councils appoint Executive Committees which
act as Advisory Committees for the departments. These
Committees and Councils have been too recently formed
for any opinion to be passed as to the efficiency of the
system of organisation. It is a distinct advance on
anything that previously existed, and given a definite
national policy in agriculture would probably form a suffi-

68 Agriculture and the Community.

cient basis for such future developments as experience
showed to be necessary. Without a definite pohcy the
Committees and Councils are likely to shrink into debating-
societies merely, and become impotent to do any practical
work.

Any attempt to lay down detailed constitutions for
administrative bodies would be premature. The nature
and extent of the administration necessary will depend on
the form of org-anisation the industry will take, and that
must be a matter of gradual development from the present
position. Certain general principles may however be
advanced. The central authority in each country ought
to be organised on somewhat different lines from those
presently existing. In England the Ministry of Agricul-
ture is controlled by a political chief who works through
a body of civil servants ; in Scotland there is a body of
civil servants who work under the control of the Secretary
for Scotland. Every matter of administration thus
becomes a political question, and has to be considered
primarily in all its political and party reactions rather
than from the point of view of the industry. In larger
questions of policy it is not possible or desirable to prevent
this, but the extent to which poHtical issues dominate
policy is not good for the industry. So long as Parliament
concerned itself very little with the actual conduct of
industries, the method of entrusting administration to
political chiefs worked fairly well, but now that the State
is concerning itself so largely with the actual conduct of
most of the larger industries, and must do sO' to an even
greater extent in future, we have to find a method of

A National Policy. 69

administration which will separate the actual control of
industrial processes from the more general questions of
policy which are properly political questions. A Parlia-
ment which attempts to deal with every detail of
administration, as well as with the large political issues,
is bound to become overloaded, and must leave the great
bulk of the work to permanent officials, over whom it can
exercise no real control.

The central authorities ought to be real boards of
control, subject to Parliament for carrying out the general
policy laid down, but \\'ith greater powers of initiative and
more freedom of action than the present departments have.
They should be definitely representative of the principal
interests involved. The Boards need not be large but
should be representative of the scientific and technical
workers in the industry, of the managerial interests, both
land and farming, of the workers, and of the consumers.
Full publicity should be given to the work of the Boards
and the different interests involved should have ready
access to the Board, and be kept in touch with its proceed-
ings. It should not be necessary for those seeking
information to resort to the cumbersome method of
questions in Parliament, and the present attitude of
burking enquiry so evident in the evasion of such questions
should be frankly departed from. In short, the principle
upon which the Boards should work should be that they
are responsible bodies, dealing with the industry openly,
and not sheltering behind a Ministry through the the bottle
neck of which alone they find contact with those most
directly interested in the industry. It is not so much a

7© Agriculture and the Community.

change of machinery that is necessary, although that too
is required and can be secured as experience proves
advantageous, as a change of responsibiUty for the admin-
istration from the poUticians to the industry itself.

But if control is to be effective there will have to be
greater decentralisation than at present. " Farming from
Whitehall " is a common butt of the easy jokes of those
who want no State interference with farming, and nothing
would please the critics better than a highly centralised
system. It would be sure to fail. Farming in this country
is not one industry, but many industries, and there is a
remarkable variety of conditions of climate and soil within
the shores of the island. Any attempt, therefore, to build
up effective machinery on centralised lines would be to
court disaster. There ought to be the closest touch between
the central boards and the county committees, but the
county committees should be given greater powers of
initiative, and should have more responsibility for actual
control within their areas. They should be thoroughly
representative of the different interests within their area,
and should work in close co-operation with the organisa-
tions of producers and consumers. The same attitude of
direct responsibility to the industry should characterise all
their actions. Their meetings should be public and their
minutes and reports should be readily available to all
interested. Only thus can they create the corporate spirit
in the industry, and gain the support of the general
community for the work they have to do.

If these county committees and national boards are to
be successful, the organisation of the different interests

A National Policy. 7^

involved will require to be developed so that effective
representative bodies will be available from which the
representatives can be elected, and which can keep the
individual in touch with the statutory authorities. There
has been a remarkable development in recent years of the
organisation of both farmers and workmen, but a good
deal has yet to be done to create a corporate spirit.
Naturally, in the earlier stages of such organisations, the
tendency is to confine activity to the simpler issues with
a wide appeal, but as the organisations develop they ought
to be encouraged to widen the scope of their activities,
and to become more representative of all sides of the
members' interests. There is, too, a tendency to dispersion
on the technical side. The multitude of breed societies,
and organisations devoted to sectional interests are rather
bewildering. The active and progressive farmer finds
himself a member of a surprising number of organisations.
This makes the representation of the technical side of the
industry rather a difficult matter. There is not one
technique in farming, but several techniques, and not a
little rivalry and competition between the different
organisations. It is all to the good of the industry that
we should have this keenness for the promotion of different
phases of the industry. So far, however, as the general
control and administration of the industry are concerned,
there ought to be no conflict of interest, and it ought to be
possible to work out some method by which the technical
interests in the industry should be able to secure
representation on the authorities. On the scientific
side we may hope that as the industry makes fuller use

72 Agriculture and the Community.

of the services of the scientific and research workers we
are training, that they would form their own associations
and contribute their share to the work of administration.

What I have been discussing here is the organisation
of the administrative authorities in the industry. These
Committees and Boards will carry out the national policy
in agriculture. They will not carry out the actual work
of managing the land or running the farms. It ought not
to be necessary to have to make such a disclaimer. There
is a sufficiently clear distinction between administrative
work and the actual conduct of an industry, and to those
who are considering the problem with an open mind, the
distinction between the two spheres will be apparent.
Unfortunately, however, when proposals are made for
anything in the nature of collectivism in any industry, too
many people are inclined to jump to the conclusion that
the whole industry is to be run from top to bottom by a
government department, and at once the bogey of a host
of officials is exhibited, to save the critics the necessity for
dealing with the merits of the case. Knowing the weak-
ness of agriculturists for pouring scorn on farming by
government departments, I deem it wise to make it clear
that I have no intention of proposing farming by
committees or boards. It will be necessary for these
committees and boards to arrange for the management
and cultivation of land, but when they do so they will
decide policy and decree what is to be done with the land,
but will hand over the actual work to those who, by
training and experience, are competent to carry it out.
I have sufficient faith in the common sense and capacity

A National Polic\). 73

of the representatives who would be elected to the
committees and boards I have sug-g-ested, to believe that
they will know enough about the industry to leave the
actual work to those who are competent to do it. Their
business in such cases will be to select the right people,
and if they are not competent to do that I cannot imagine
what other method could be devised to place the industry
in the hands of the people who can make the best use of
the land, and the scientific and technical knowledge at
our disposal. The mere possession of money and a desire
to engag^e in farming are not sufficient qualifications for
justifying a man getting possession of land. We have
tried that and we have the problem I have endeavoured
to state in earlier chapters. That we have had farming
by committees in the past, on co-operative and municipal
farms which have brought such farming into disrepute
is true, but the fault has g'enerally arisen from the fact
that the committees did not know anything about farming
and so desired to run the farms by Committee. They
imagined that could be done by putting them in charge of
men whose principal qualification from the committee's
point of view, was that they were willing to undertake
the management for a wage a few shillings higher than
that of a ploughman, and had not enough self-respect tO'
insist that they should be allowed to do the work they
were appointed to do, even if they had the qualifications,
which was not often the case.

There are three general lines along which the work of
the committees and boards may be developed. The first
is the grading up of farming under the present system so

74 Agriculture and the Community.

as to weed out the inefficient and indifferent landowners
and farmers ; the second is the development of new methods
of farmings ; and the third is the improvement and
reclamation of land suitable for agriculture. In each of
these directions it is important that the work of research,
demonstration and education at present going" on should
be more fully developed, and the closest relations kept
between the scientific side and the practical work.

Control of Land and Cultivation.

Under the Corn Production Act powers were given to
the Ministry of Agriculture, and the Board of Agriculture
for Scotland, to enforce a standard of cultivation. These
powers were not used to any extent during the War, as
it was found simpler to rely upon the powers under the
Defence of the Realm Acts. By virtue of these powers a
considerable amount was done, principally in the direction
of breaking up grass land and in securing an increased
acreage devoted to cereals. The Ag^riculture Act, 1920,
was introduced to make permanent the provisions of the
Corn Production Act, and as it was first drafted, did
promise to give powers which could haAC been used to
deal with owners and tenants who were failing to make
proper use of the land they controlled. During the passage
of the Act through the House of Lords, the old spirit of
opposition to any interference by the community with the
private ownership and control of land was sufficiently
strong to secure such a weakening of the powers that the
Act as passed falls very far short of what is required. The
central weakness of the Act is that the powers to secure

A National Folic}). 75

proper maintenance and cultivation of the land are
dependent on the guaranteed prices. If, as I believe will
be the case, the policy of guaranteed prices is departed
from, the provisions of the Act for enforcing good
husbandry also lapse. But, in any case, powers to enforce
good husbandry which are avowedly taken as a comple-
ment to guaranteed prices cannot be effective unless the
guarantee of prices is a substantial safeguard to the farmer
who is prepared to farm well. It has to be remembered
that to the majority of farmers the guaranteed prices
for cereals mean very little, and to a considerable number
nothing at all. To make the compulsory powers depend
upon these guaranttes is to create the presumption in the
minds of the members of the committees that compulsion
ought only to be exercised where State aid is received.

The powers given under the Act limit the control of
cultivation to securing by service of notices the mainten-
ance, so far as practicable, of land, " clean and in a good
state of cultivation and fertility and in good condition "
and the improvement of existing methods of cultivation
" without injuriously affecting the persons interested in
the land." Unreasonable failure to comply with a notice
served is punishable by fine, but the power to determine
tenancies or take possession in case of default has been
repealed. Where good husbandry and food production
have been prejudiced by the gross mismanagement of an
estate, the Minister of Agriculture may make an order
appointing a receiver and manager to act on behalf of the
owner with wide powers of management. The most
significant thing is the repeal of the power to determine

76 Agriculture and the Community.

tenancies and to take possession in case of default.
Without such power the passings of orders and inflicting
of fines will be of little use, and we may expect Committees
to resort very seldom to direct pressure when they have
no power of making such pressure effective. The fact that
the power to evict was refused is a direct instruction to
the Committees not to attempt anything of a vigorous
nature. They may deal with the grosser cases of neglect,
but as active agents in bracing up the handling of land
they are not meant to do more than advise and recommend.

I believe that the Committees ought to be given powers
to take over the control of land even where gross misman-
agement on the part of the owner is not alleged. It is
absurd to allow the inefficiency to continue until the stage
of gross mismanagement is reached. Many owners fail
because of financial inability, and much damage can be
done and loss be caused to the community long before the
stage of gross mismanagement is reached. If the Com-
mittees can show that the best use is not being made of
the land because of defective or impoverished management,
and the Committees are prepared to accept the responsi-
bility for improved management, they ought to be
empowered to proceed. There will be mistakes made by
the Committees, and they will not fail for want of critics,
so that the test for them will be a real one. If the Com-
mittees make good the nation will benefit. The policy will
have to be judged on its total results, and the responsibility
will rest upon the whole community. That responsibility
ought to be accepted if we are to make demands on the
industry.

A National Policy. 77

The same method ought to be adopted in dealing with
tenants who are not making the best use of the land they
hold. If the Committees are satisfied that better use could
be made of the land they ought to be prepared to shoulder
the responsibility, and if the tenants will not alter their
methods, the Committees ought to have the power to take
over the farms and instal competent managers who will
make better use of the opportunities. That is a reason-
able test to apply to the Committees. There is no justifi-
cation for them recommending altered methods unless
they are prepared to undertake the responsibility for the
courses they propose. We need not fear that any sudden
revolution will occur because the Committees are given
these powers. The Committees are likely to be conserv-
ative rather than revolutionary, but given a clear
expression of the national will to make the industry a real
public service, the results will have a tonic effect on the
industry, and by trial and experiment we may reasonably
hope for progressive developments.

Under the Agriculture Act, 1920, where a receiver and
manager of an estate is appointed by the Minister of
Agriculture, the intention is tO' manage the estates which
have been grossly mismanaged, for the benefit of the
owners. In the Act as originally drafted power was to
be given to the Minister to determine tenancies and to
farm the land, or to let to other tenants. The idea under-
lying the powers in the Act, and in the proposals which
were deleted from the Act, v.as that a temporary arrange-
ment should be made in the public interest, but that the
rights of the owners should still exist and the estates might

78 Agriculture and the Community.

be handed back again to the owners, or the farms might
be managed by the owners, after the unsatisfactory
tenants had been got rid of. This is neither fair to the
community nor good for the industry. It would mean that
the State would have to handle the derelicts and accept the
responsibility and risk of putting them into going order,
after which the owners would resume possession. If the
State takes over mismanaged estates and farms neglected
land, and proves that it can make effective use of such
estates and farms, it ought in the national interest to
continue possession. If the burden is found too heavy for
the State, the liklihood is that it will be left in possession.
It would be a foolish policy to use the resources of the
State to salve the derelicts, and then hand the going
concerns over to priv^ate individuals, leaving the failures
for the State to carry. When an estate has to be taken
over, the landlord should be dispossessed and compensation
for his rights granted him on the basis of a mismanaged
agricultural estate. If a tenant is got rid of he should be
treated in the same way. But once the State enters into
possession it should remain in possession.

I am aware that the policy I am advocating is not one
that will be profitable to the State, considered on a purely
commercial basis. It is likely for a time at any rate to
prove more costly than remunerative, but in the long run
it will pay to prevent the deterioration of national resources,
and there is no other way unless we are prepared to see
land further impoverished and neglected, and cultivation
decreased.

The powers I have proposed to give the Committees

A National Policy. 79

would mean a drastic interference with the manag-ement
of agricultural land and with farming-. But the extent
of mismanaged estates and inefficiently-farmed land is too
great for us to hope that less drastic measures will suffice.
Sir Daniel Hall's opinion is striking: — "The most
effective lever tO' secure the better farming that is now
needed in the national interest would be to give the State
powers to take over any land that is being inadequately
used ; the State could then develop this land either on the
large farm system or by settling it with small-holding
colonies. In this way pressure would be put on the
owners of land to make the most of it, pressure arising on
the one hand from increased competition owing to
displacement and on the other from the implied threat of
dispossession if the occupier is allowed to farm badly. But
if the State is to be given power to take over land that is
not being fully utilised, it must also be prepared to farm
the land itself on one or other of the methods indicated.
The justification for such drastic measures is the critical
situation into which the nation has drifted and the
imperative necessity of developing the production of food
on our own soil, but these measures cannot be adopted
until the State is ready to manage the land itself."
(" Agriculture After the War," p. 65.)

Demonstration Farms.

The second line of work the Committees should under-
take is in the development of new methods of farming, I do
not mean the experimental w'ork which is done at present
by the Agricultural Colleges and the various research

8o Agriculture and the Community.

associations and societies. That work ought to go on as
it does to-day, and under the control of the scientific
workers. The Committees may do much to assist in such
work, and in making the results known, or directly by
applying proved results in the land farmed under their
direction. What I have in view is developments on the
economic side. We ought to have demonstration farms
of various kinds run on economic lines, the whole results
of which would be available for the information of those
interested in the industry. We might describe this as
experimenting in the economics of agriculture, and there
is urgent need that we should have some more exact
knowledge as to the economics of agriculture. On the
scientific side we have a large body of exact and valuable
information; on the economic side we are still floundering
about in the regions of surmise and guesswork. In one
direction we ought to have bold and courageous
experiment, and that is in large scale production. There
are a few large farms in this country worked intensively,
but it is difficult to get figures to show the relative cost
of production and output per units of labour and capital
employed, so that comparison may be made with the typical
farms ranging round 200 acres. Most authorities are
agreed that the least economic unit for farming is 100 to
300 acres. In England and Wales we have 69,716
holdings of from 100 to 300 acres, occupying 11,792,000
acres or 45 per cent, of the cultivated land. This gives an
average size of 169 acres. Obviously if the authorities are
right in their contention that these are uneconomic units
for the employment of capital and labour, we ought as a

A National Polic}). 8i

community to get away from such units and organise our
agriculture on the lines that will give us the best
economic results. The present distribution of land may
suit farmers because the amount of capital required for
those farms between lOo and 300 acres is within their
reach as individuals, but it is not in the interest of the
nation that we should be using capital and labour
uneconomically, merely because it suits the farmers. The
agricultural workers are vitally interested in this question
because their prospects depend on the most economic use
being made of their labour. The larger the output per unit
of labour employed the greater the margin from which
improvements can come.

How far the cost of production can be lessened by
increasing the scale of operations in farming is a problem
for investigation. There seems no reason why on large
scale farms, economies in management, in the organisation
of labour, in the more effective use of modern machinery,
and in buying and selling on wholesale lines, should not be
the result as in other industries. Even more important
is the opportunity for economies in the use of land. It
is not possible to compute the waste that results from
the present arrangement of fields and farms, but it must
be very large. The unnecessary fences and hedges waste
a considerable area of land. In Oxfordshire alone,
according to Mr. C. S. Orwin, the roadside hedges occupy
an area of 1,500 acres. When the land was enclosed the
laying out of the fields was not arranged to make the
most effective use of the ground, but was done to suit the
various interests and to satisfy claimants. The result

82 Agriculture and the Community).

has been that many farms are most uneconomically
arranged, and a great waste of land and labour is entailed.

It is not likely that we shall have any great development
of farming on joint stock company lines which would be
the only way that private enterprise could operate in this
direction. The State could and should finance experiments
in this direction, so that reliable data could be got to guide
us to the best form of organisation for the industry. We
ought to have farms of i,ooo, 2,000, and even up to 10,000
acres undertaken by the State working through the County
Committees. I am aware af the practical difficulties in
the way. There would be the difficulty of securing the
necessary managerial and expert staff for the work. As
I have already pointed out we have not provided
opportunities for training men for such work, and it would
not be easy to find the right men. We should have to
begin with a few large farms and trust to the
opportunities of training the necessary men on these
farms for an extension of the work. That there would be
no lack of men willing to train seems evident from the
number of young people who train now with practically
no prospects of being absorbed in the industry. With the
prospect in front of them of an honourable career in the
public service we have every reason to believe that the
industry would prove attractive and that the authorities
would be able to bring a valuable draft of fresh blood and
new ideas to the industry.

The third direction in which the Committees could find
useful work is in the reclamation of waste lands.
Obviously this is work which can only be undertaken on

A National Policy. 83

national lines. There is no likelihood of private capital
being employed in such work. It does not offer sufficiently
profitable returns. How far such work is worth under-
taking depends on other considerations than the purely
economic returns. It may be found that such work offers
a way of employing surplus labour at times when other
industries are not able to employ the workers. Again it
may be found advantageous to the community to develop
land in certain areas for social reasons. The issues
involved are questions of policy for the community to
decide, but if it is desired to reclaim and develop waste
land, the work would naturally be carried out by the
Committees acting in conjunction with the Ministry.

The Unit of Produdion.

If the policy I have outlined is adopted and a higher
standard of cultivation is enforced than generally exists
at present, we may expect that the community will
find it necessary to take over much land badly managed
or indifferently farmed at present. The question arises
what is to be done with such land. Where it is necessary
for the community to take the place of the landlord, it
may not be necessary to change the tenants if they are
able to make effective use of the better opportunities which
ex hypothesi the change of ownership will effect. The only
alteration we need consider in such cases would be where
the development of the land was being hampered because
it was portioned out in uneconomic units. The interest of
the community would be to secure the most effective use
of the land and it might be desirable to amalgamate some

84 Agriculture and the Community.

holdings and to divide others. No rule can be laid dov.n.
Each case would have to be considered on its own merits.
In some instances the committees might decide to take
over the cultivation of the land from the tenants, because
they believed that it could best be developed as large
scale units ; in others they might decide to let to tenants,
if suitable tenants offered. Similarly with holdings from
which tenants were evicted because they were inefficient.
It might be simpler for the Committees to replace the
undesirable tenants by others who appeared likely to make
proper use of the land. Where, however, the Committees
took over the actual cultivation of the land it would not
be wise to hand over such land again to private individuals.
Generally speaking the tendency would be for private
enterprise to seek to replace the committees where they
had proved that the land could be profitably farmed and
to avoid the holdings which the committees found least
remunerative. It would not be in the public interest to
accept the risks and make the expenditure for the purpose
of providing remunerati\e openings for private individuals
and leave the more burdensome holdings for the public to
maintain.

If the policy I suggest is adopted we may expect that
a considerable amount of land will in the course of a few-
years come under the control and management of the
agricultural departments and committees. The transfer
would be gradual and we do not require to envisage
anything in the nature of an upheaval in agriculture from
the adoption of such a policy unless it is accelerated by such
a collapse of the markets as will drive out those engaged

A National Policy. 85

in farming" at present. There are two main lines along
which the occupation of land may develop and we may
consider how the community will tend to proceed, whether
by way of large units, or by the creation of small holdings.

I have already indicated that I do not see any future for
small holdings under our present system of land tenure
and under present conditions of agriculture. It may be
contended, however, that the problem is essentially different
if the land is under the control of the community and that
the state may find it better to encourage small holdings.
Those who hold this view are generally prepared to admit
that any substantial increase of small holding's depends
on the extent of co-operation amongst the small holders,
both in the provision of credit and in buying and selling.
So far the results of the propaganda of co-operation
amongst farmers and small holders in this country have
not been very encouraging and compared to what has been
effected in other countries, the progfress made has been
disappointing-.

The most outstandings successes in co-operation are to
be found in Denmark and Ireland and there are features
common to both countries which are not present in Britain.
Both Denmark and Ireland are countries without such
minerals as enable them to engage in manufactures on
any effective scale. They are dependent on agriculture
and must concentrate upon it. They are both countries
producing milk products, eggs, and bacon for export. The
home market in both countries is of less importance. It
is necessary to bulk the products, and to standardise them
if trade is to be done. This makes co-operation not merely

86 Agriculture and the Communit'^.

desirable but absolutely necessary, and the nature of the
products makes it simple. Both countries developed co-
operation in an industry already in the hands of small
holders, and the small holders are able to survive because
co-operation was developed.

We should have to start from the other end and create
the small holders. If we did so the small holders would
have to compete through their co-operative societies with
the co-operative societies of Denmark and Ireland and in
the same products. The competition would be intense and
unless there was a margin in favour of our small holders
either in cost of production, in cost of transit, or in quality
of produce the result would not be prosperity for the small
holders in this country. Unless the intention is to create
small holdings by heavy subsidies from the State I cannot
see how the cost of production can be less in this country.
It would be a very expensive business creating small
holdings. According to the Minister of Agriculture, in
presenting the Agricultural Estimates this year, the Gov-
ernment is finding that the provision of small holdings for
ex-service men is proving very costly. The policy now is
to restrict the expenditure on one holding to ;;^2 5oo for
land and permanent equipment alone. He estimated that
40 per cent, of the cost w'ould not be recovered from the
holders and would have to be borne by the state, and his
estimate is probably under the actual figure. Obviously,
that policy cannot be continued to the stage of creating
such a number of small holdings as will make co-operative
societies able tO' compete with the established traders of
Denmark and Ireland. But even the portion of the cost
falling on the small holders is enough to prevent any

A National Policy. 87

advantage in cost of production for the small holders in
this country unless their standard of living- is to be brought
below that of the Danes and the Irish.

When \ve go outside butter, cheese, eggs and bacon,
the possibilities of co-operation are much more limited. It
is not an accident that co-operation has been most success-
ful in these products. The reason is to be found in the
nature of the products themselves. Something might be
done in vegetables, fruit and flowers, but these are products
restricted to definite and limited areas in this country and
they can be more economically produced on the large
holdings. When we come to the production and sale of
milk, meat, cereals and potatoes, the small men are at such
a disadvantage on the productive side tjiat co-operation
cannot carry them over.

At the best, however, co-operation cannot do more for
small holders than lessen the handicap against them in
buying and selling alongside the large producer. There is
no virtue in the small holding on the productive side unless
we are prepared to neglect the labour cost of the small
holder and his family. Whether it be in growing grain
or potatoes, feeding bullocks or producing milk, the most
economic unit for the community is the large unit. Modern
machinery and scientific knowledge have given the advan-
tage to the use of large capital in the production of these
staples. It is by operating these on a scale which will
secure their most economic use that the interest of the
community will best be served. The small holder even by
the expenditure of excessive labour cannot compete
against the large producer.

88 Agriculture and the Community).

Whether agriculture Is carried on as a sjstcm of private
enterprise for commercial profit, or developed as a public
service for the community, it will have to face the competi-
tion of other lands. It may be possible for a time to get
the community to subsidise small holders, to guarantee
prices to farmers, or to finance collective farming, but in
the long" run the public will insist on the industry standing
on its own feet and meeting the competition from abroad.
If other lands are more favourably situated for the econo-
mic production of certain agricultural products than this
country there is no reason why we should produce these
at a higher cost, and so di\'ert labour from its most
economic use. It would be better for us to concentrate
on producing the goods where the advantages lie with us,
and to exchang'e our products. That means that we must
be prepared to use both capital and labour in the directions
where the greatest net return can be secured. I believe it
will be found that it is by large scale farming that agricul-
ture will be best able to face foreign competition.

I have already indicated that what we require most is
research in the economics of farming-. There is no body
of reliable evidence to show what is the most economic
unit for farming operations. It is not difficult to show
that most of our farms ranging round 200 acres carry
toO' heavy costs for equipment and management on the
possible output. The farmer's time is largely taken up
in mere trading which adds nothing to the productive side
of the industry, Interesting and lucrative as it may be in
many instances to the farmer. But such criticisms do
not carry us far on the way to demonstrating the most

A National Policy. 89

economic unit or the best way for the community to
organise agriculture. Until we have a great deal more
data we cannot find a reliable basis on which to build.
One of the first things we ought to set ourselves to discover
is the actual costs of farming operations and the
comparative results of different sizes of holdings. It is
regrettable that the beginning made by the Government
in setting up Costings Committees has practically been
abandoned. How necessary this work is, a reading of
the evidence led before the Royal Commission on
Agriculture will demonstrate. It is the most urgent branch
of research work.

There are certain directions, however, in which we may
reasonably expect large scale holdings to show reduced
costs. On a 1,000 acre farm, the land could be so laid out
that there would be less waste of land than on 5 farms of
200 acres. There would be less waste of the time of men
and horses because the fields could be better planned.
One has only to travel through England and watch the
lay out of the fields to see the enormous waste of time
there must be in working badly laid-off fields. The
permanent equipment on one large farm would be
relatively less costly than on 5 smaller farms. Instead
of five farmers there would be one manager. With more
and better machinery the output could be as great from
the 1,000 acre farm as from the five farms, with fewer
men employed, or the output could be increased with the
same number employed. Economies could be effected in
buying and selling on a large scale, transport would be
relatively cheaper, and the organisation of labour on the

9© Agriculture and the Community.

larger unit would be more economic than on the separate
farms.

I think we may reasonably claim that large scale farming
would give these advantages all of which would tend to
reduce costs. On the other hand is it too much to expect
that the larger units could give us better production by
the opportunities for more skilful management, for the
employment of more specialised skill both on the scientific
side and on that of the workers? In other industries it has
been found that the larger units can afford to pay for the
best skill, and that economies are effected both in the
direction of reducing costs and in increasing output. In
agriculture we are told these results would not be secured.
Just because it is a small scale industry we find that the
old superstitions are encouraged. Agriculture is held to
be a mystery into which men have to be born, and which
will not reveal its secrets to intelligence and organisation.
We are solemnly assured that the personal factor is every-
thing and that it is not possible to reduce practice to
system and organisation. Yet, on their own showing,
these born farmers have not made a triumphant success of
the industry. They are prone to plead that they could not
even make a living at it. That it is really something of a
mystery tO' most of them I am ready to believe, after
sitting many days listening to their endeavours to show
what it cost to produce an acre of wheat, and how every
crop they grew resulted in loss. If any reader imagines
I am exaggerating I would recommend a reading of the
evidence of English farmers before the Royal Commission
on Agriculture, 1919.

A National Policy. 91

Agriculture is just as capable of being reduced to system
and organisation as any other industry. Indeed, until we
do bring system and organisation into the industry we
shall continue to grope along in ignorance of how best to
use our resources. Consider the futility of having to
appoint a Royal Commission to discover the cost of
growing wheat ! But that was capped by the discovery
made by the Commission that there was no way of finding
the cost, and so the Ministry of Agriculture made a guess
(which it revised next week) and the Government based
its guaranteed prices on the revised guess. Until we do
organise the industry and get reliable data from properly
kept cost accounts, we have no means of knowing what
are the best means of developing the industry, or how the
best use can be made of the land, labour and capital of the
community.

IV.

The Consumers' Interest.

Fiscal Policy.

The main interest of the community in agriculture is as
consumers. They desire to get the food they require
produced in sufficient quantity and as cheaply as possible.
If that can be done by the producers in this country on
more favourable terms than it can be secured from abroad,
they will buy the home produce, but if the home producers
cannot compete with overseas supplies, the community is
not likely to penalise itself in the interest of the agricultural
industry. This is a common ground of complaint by
farmers against the people of this country. They inveigh
against the cry for cheapness and plead that in the national
interest the consumers ought to be prepared to forego the
advantage of free trade prices so as to maintain a larger
production in this country and a larger rural population.
At the same time they show no desire to give up the
advantages of free trade in the commodities they consume
themselves, either in the course of their business or as
citizens. This weakness they share with most advocates
of a system of protection.

There is nothing sacrosanct in the policy of free trade.
It is a policy and there is no reason why we should elevate
it to the rank of a principle which must be accepted on
any ground other than that of expediency. If it could be
shown that on the balance the national advantage lay in

92

The Consumers' Interest. 93

maintaining the agricultural industry in this country at
the expense of the consumer, we should be justified in
giving the farmers a protected market. Unless, however,
it can be shown that the agricultural industry is making
the fullest use of its opportunities, and conducting its
operations on the most efficient lines, no good case can be
made out for protection. I have tried to show that the
industry generally is not being as efficiently conducted as
it could be, and that it has not reached the limit of what
is possible even under a system of profit-making
capitalism. The effect of protection would not be to
induce greater enterprise and efficiency, but would tend
rather to ensure easier profits to the inefficient. In itself
it would do nothing to increase production on economic
lines. It would inevitably lead the industry to concentrate
on efforts to secure higher protection, and to look for
increased profits from better prices rather than from
improved methods. From the point of view of the com-
munity it is questionable if protection would give the
desired increase in production, or secure the maintenance
of a larger rural population. The cost to the nation would
be a heavy one and no method has been devised of pre-
venting a system of protection from enriching the land-
owners and capitalists at the expense of the general
community. The agricultural workers in particular have
no reason to believe that any benefit which they might
conceivably secure, as workers, from an industry which
employers might conduct more profitably under a protective
system would compensate them for the higher cost of
living such a system would necessarily entail.

I am convinced that the industry will develop more

94 Agriculture and the Community).

soundly under the system of free trade. Experience has
shown that any other system would be very difficult to
impose upon the people of this country, and if imposed
would be very difficult to maintain. There would never
be sufficient confidence in the maintenance of the protective
system to provide a healthy basis. For that reason I
believe that any efforts to establish the industry on the
basis of protective duties or guarantees are not in the best
interest of the industry and that the sooner we revert to
the condition of open markets and dispense with guarantees
the better it will be for the industry. All such proposals
for buttressing- the industry are put forward for the purpose
of conserving the interests of the landowners and farmers
in the first instance. The assumption is that the industry
must give a sufficient return to the owners of land and the
owners of capital, otherwise the workers cannot be
employed. While the proposals are advocated as a means
of keeping the land in cultivation and maintaining more
Avorkers in employment, these ends are dependent on the
rents being paid to the landowners, and the profits secured
to the farmers. Without such rents and profits the present
system would not function.

But it is not the business of the community to ensure
that rent and profit will be created for the classes who live
by them. The interest of the community is to secure the
necessary food on the most favourable terms. That
interest is often narrowed to mean cheap food only. While
it is desirable that we should get our food as cheaply as
possible, the price must be such as will secure to the
producers a proper standard of living. That means that
those whose labour, skill and management are necessary

The Consumers' Interest. 95

for the work of production shall be properly paid, and
work under conditions which will give them reasonable
opportunities for living a good life. It does not mean
that certain individuals as landowners shall be paid the
economic rent of land accruing from the natural advantages
of site and soil. Such economic rent ought to accrue to
the community. It does not mean that there should be
opportunities for the owners of capital to exploit the labour
of the workers, and the national resources, for profit-
making. These are sectional and class interests which run
counter to the interest of the general community.

I have tried to make my general position clear because
it will probably be asked what the position of the land-
owner and farmer will be under the agricultural system
I have proposed. We are likely to have both private
owners of land and tenant farmers working for profit,
continuing for some time in this country. I have not
proposed the wholesale expropriation of landowners and
farmers, but merely the gradual taking over of the industry
by the community by the enforcing of a standard of cul-
tivation on farmers, by the taking over of badly managed'
or impoverished estates, and by the gradual extension of
large-scale farming. It may well be asked what the
position of the private landowner and tenant farmer will
be under such a system, if they are to be left to the chances
of the market without any protection or aid, and yet com-
pelled to maintain a standard of cultivation. My answer
is that they must take the risk. They do not hold land
or engage in farming to provide for the needs of the
community. They do so to serve their own ends. It is
not the business of the community to further their interests

gO Agriculture and the Community.

as private individuals. If they engage in these pursuits
because they hope to serve their own ends, they must
accept the risks. They are not entitled to ask the com-
munity to bear their losses if their ventures do not succeed.
All they are entitled to claim is that the community should
not dispossess them without reasonable compensation if
they are conforming to the standard laid down by the
community for the use of the national resources in the
land.

The view here expressed will appear the rankest heresy
to the landowners and farmers. They are accustomed to
think of themselves as the agricultural industry and that
they have a claim upon the community because they are
the food producers. They have been more clamant in
their demands upon the State during the past few years
because the dependence of the community on home-
produced food during the war was greater than it had
been for half a century. There has been much talk by
farmers about agriculture saving the nation, but what was
really meant was that the farmers had been the saviours.
What they forget is, that even in the stress of war con-
ditions they were not prepared to forego their own
commercial interests. They were prepared to serve the
State on terms. No one need blame them for exacting
terms. They are in the industry to make a living or to
make money, just as other capitalists invest their capital
in various industries. Such service as they give to the
community is dependent upon their own personal and
private ends being served, and they are quite prepared to
sacrifice the public interest in seeking their own gain. So
long as the community accepts the present basis of

The Consumers' Interest. 97

industry there is no reason why they should apologise for
doing so, but there is equally no reason why they should
assume a virtue they do not possess, or make claims
against the community which are not justified by services
rendered.

If the landowners and farmers find that they cannot
continue under the conditions obtaining, the community
will have to accept responsibility for carrying on the
industry. The conditions will undoubtedly be more severe
and only the most efificient are likely to survive.

Whether the agricultural industry in this country can
successfully compete against foreign produce is a question
on which it would be unwise to dogmatise on the infor-
mation at our disposal. The landowners and farmers
have evidently no faith that they can do so in corn-growing
at any rate, otherwise they would not demand to be sub-
sidised by the taxpayers. I have adduced sufficient evidence
to show that part of the failure in the industry is due to
causes that it is within the power of the community to
remove, and if the measures I have outlined are adopted,
I believe part of the handicap can be removed, although
it will entail a fundamental change in the whole structure
of the industry. Whether these changes will make it
possible for us to produce corn at a cost that will enable
us to compete with overseas supplies only time can tell.
Before the war we imported four-fifths of our requirements
in wheat and flour, but all authorities are agreed that even
under the conditions then obtaining, the home supply
could have been increased if our farmers had been more
skilful and enterprising. With a vigorous policy of
weeding out the less efificient farmers and the provision

9^ Agriculture and the Community.

of more capital for permanent equipment and g-reater
security to the farmers who are prepared to make a fuller
use of the land, we may reasonably expect to increase
home production. I do not think, however, that it is a
wise policy to place all the emphasis on wheat production,
as has been done during the past two years. That was
a natural result of war conditions, and grew out of the
emergency created by the submarine danger. We were
compelled to concentrate on the home production of bread
stuffs, and to secure an increase at any cost. Any attempt
to continue that policy under peace conditons and with
open seas could not be maintained in a manufacturing
nation, and the longer it is continued the more harmful
will the effect be on agriculture in the long run. The
industry should not be stimulated to develop in a direction
which requires subsidies, but should be encouraged to find
the directions in which the best returns on the capital and
labour employed in it can be secured without the aid of
guarantees or subsidies.

It is exceedingly difficult to estimate what permanent
effects the upheaval caused by the war will have on the
world prices of foodstuffs. Before the war prices were
steadily rising, and the farming industry, as I have shown
in previous pages, was feeling the effects of the improved
prices and responding slowly. There is reasonable ground
to believe that when world conditions become more settled
the pressure of population on the available sources of food
supply will somewhat reverse the tendency of the second
half of the nineteenth century. The exploitaton of virgin
soils for wheat growing is not likely to compete so seriously
against the intensive agriculture of this country, and we

The Conswners' Interest. 99

may reasonably expect, with greater attention to more
economic production, that the industry will hold its own,
and improve as time goes on.

When we consider other branches of farming we do not
find the same pessimistic outlook among those engaged
in the industry. Home production in meat and milk has
many advantages and is able to hold its own, as was proved
during the depression. Foreign competition has been most
severe in butter, cheese, eggs and bacon, largely because
we neglected these commodities and left the market to
competitors who had no natural advantage. There is no
reason why we should not improve greatly on the productive
side in these commodities and so do something to win back
our own markets.

Markets and Middlemen.

It is not merely on the productive side that we fail. On
the distributive side the industry suffers grievously.
There is no organisation to enable the industry to market
its products economically. Instead we have an absolute
riot of dealers and middlemen few of whom perform any
real service to the community for the addition they make
to the retail prices of the commodities. They exploit the
unorganised market for their own gain with the result that
both producers and consumers suffer from their activities.
Efforts have been made by the different agricultural
organisation societies to establish more economical
methods but with little effect on the whole market although
in certain commodities and in definite districts they have
proved how wasteful the old methods are.

loo Agriculture and the Community.

If we take the distribution of milk as an example, we
may gain some idea of how the producer is robbed and the
consumer penalised. Milk production was the most
sweated occupation in agriculture before the war.
Attempts were being made immediately before the outbreak
of war to organise the milk farmers for the purpose of
limiting the cut-throat competition amongst them. We
had a multitude of farmers producing a rapidly perishable
commodity with no reserve of capital, requiring to turn
their product into money at once. The wholesale dealers
took advantage of this and played otT one producer against
the other. The men who were dependent on milk
production found the market raided in summer by other
farmers who had surplus milk to dispose of, and were
concerned merely to get rid of it without any consideration
of the effect on the market. The result was that the
price was cut to the point where the farmers could keep
going only by the help of the unpaid labour of their own
families or by working their paid workers excessively
long hours. Money was made in milk production,
particularly by those farmers who were near industrial
centres and could dispose of their milk retail, but the
conditions of employment were the worst in agriculture
and that is saying a good deal.

How the consumer fared is notorious from the series of
Acts and bye-laws dealing with the sale of milk and the
continual prosecutions for adulteration. Step by step the
authorities had controlled the distribution and sale of
milk until control of production was reached to ensure that
the consumer was neither swindled nor infected with

A National Folic];. loi

disease. The traders could not be trusted to give the
consumers milk which was unadulterated or handled in
such a way as to limit the possibilities of epidemic disease.

While the farmers complained that the price they got
for their milk entailed sweated conditions on their workers
and themselves, the consumers complained that they did
not receive the advantage of the cheap milk. Here and
there milk was undoubtedly sold at a price that would not
pay properly for its production, but the bulk of the
consumers were paying a price that should have given
them a pure and clean supply and secured to the producers
reasonable conditions of labour. The ridiculous system
of distribution meant that the middlemen made a living
(and many of them very good livings) while the consumer
was cheated and the farmers and workers sweated.

Anyone who has to travel much on our railways cannot
fail to see the reason. For some time I have examined
the labels on milk churns at many stations and I have been
amazed to find how frequently milk is sent travelling over
a railway where it passes milk going in the opposite
direction between much the same points. It is not
uncommon to find milk being sent on a journey of 200
miles to a town, where milk within fifty miles of that town
is sent on another long journey in the direction of the
other source of supply.

The Food Ministry found it necessary to prevent this
waste of transport during the war, but it is as necessary
to prevent it during peace.

Even more wasteful is the distribution inside towns and
industrial areas. The multiplicity of shops, carts and

102 Agriculture and the Communit};.

barrows, and the waste of labour of men, women and
children all increase the cost to the consumer, render the
work of inspection and control difficult, and multiply the
risks of infection. The following quotation from a report
issued by the Labour Party on " Labour and the Milk
Supply " gives some idea of what the waste is: — " The
methods of distribution are wasteful in the extreme. In
Derby, for instance, the sales of milk in October, 1919,
averaged 32,000 gallons per week. The sales of the
Co-operative Society were close on 17,000 gallons, i.e.,
more than half the total supply. There are two hundred
and twenty-four retailers to supply the remainder. The
Co-operative Society have only sixty-three men and
seventeen women selling milk from barrows, and four men
with horses and floats, and yet they visit more than half
the houses in the borough. Moreover they maintain that
with forty-five to fifty more barrows they could undertake
to visit daily every house and replace the two hundred
and twenty-four retailers."

In Glasgow when the last controlled prices were fixed,
and in the efforts made by farmers and milk distributors
tO' regulate prices since control ceased, i/- a gallon was
allowed for the distribution to the consumer. If private
enterprise cannot do it for less, that merely demonstrates
the costly wastefulness of private enterprise and the need
for better organisation. Nor should we forget that the
waste is not merely in labour. A milk distributor at a
Wages Board meeting defending the cost of distribution
added the significant remark, " You forget how much we
have to pour down the drain."

The Consumers' Interest. 103

The milk trade is the most striking- example of wasteful
and costly distribution. It is so palpable that it cannot
escape the observation of any thoughtful person. But the
same thing is true in varying degrees of other commodities.
One has only to visit county towns on market days to
see the multitude of farmers and dealers in all commodities
who are still doing business in the leisurely gossiping way,
which is more sociable but less efficient than any other
industry can afford. A great many of those engaged in
the business are mere dealers, who give no real service
to the community as distributors. They make a living
and sometimes amass considerable wealth but it is at the
expense of the community and not by any services they
perform. The truth is that no industry maintains so many
middlemen as the agricultural industry, and in no industry
is there more scope for organisation to eliminate the
middleman and to bring the producer and consumer into
more direct relations. The saving which could be effected
in this direction would do much to place the industry on a
more healthy basis.

There are signs that the farmers recognise this and
efforts are being made to organise the markets in their
interests. I do not think that they will be very successful.
They are inveterate dealers and one has only to see them
at any of the larger stock sales to see how intensely
individualistic they are and how anxious they are to get
a shilling more for their lambs or a pound or tw^o more
for their bullocks than their neighbours. The dealers
know the weakness of the farmers for making personal
bargains and trade on it, both in selling and buying. It

I04 Agriculture and the Community).

will be exceedingly difficult work organising the markets
from the producers' side, but if it were possible it would
not be a good thing from the point of view of the
community. A ring of producers might be able to hold
the community to ransom. The organisation will more
probably come from the distributors' side. We see the
beginning of this in what is practically a milk trust in the
Lxjndon area. There is even greater danger to the
com.munity in such a direction. Both producers and
consumers may be squeezed to make profits for the share-
holders in the combine. It is not difficult to imagine a
meat trust operating in the same way.

It is highly desirable that we should eliminate the
wasteful competition of a multitude of dealers and organise
distribution in such a way that foodstuffs are brought from
the producers to the consumers with a minimum of cost
and waste. The obvious course in dealing with milk is to
organise the distribution on municipal lines. Milk is a
necessity in regular demand, the consumption of which
does not vary greatly from day to day. The municipalities
have been compelled to regulate the distribution and to
standardise the quality in the interest of the public health.
It is absurd that it should have to act as policemen to a
number of private traders, when it can quite easily organise
the distribution itself. If Clydebank Co-operative Society
can supply milk to 78.5 per cent, of the total population
within its area, there is no practical difficulty in any
municipality undertaking the distribution for the whole of
its inhabitants. From distributing milk the municipalities
should go on to production on their own farms. They

The Consumers' Interest. 105

would then be in a position to fix the price to be paid to the
producer having their own experience to guide them.
Farmers ought not to object to this. They are fond of
asserting that public bodies cannot farm successfully and
they need not fear the competition of the municipalities or
to accept the producers' price according to the municipal
experience if they really believe that municipalities cannot
farm properly.

In other agricultural commodities the consumers' co-
operative societies offer the best means of organising the
markets. These societies now control a very large share
of the retail trade in food stuffs and their wholesale sections
are also very large dealers.

In recent years they have been entering into farming and
we are likely to see an extension in this direction. It
cannot be said that the co-operative societies have as yet
shown any advance in ordinary farm practice. Their
farming has not been outstanding in any way, either from
the point of view of scientific production, or in the
conditions of the workers. The reason is probably to be
found in the fact that they have taken up farming as a
side line, and have made no attempt to enter into the
business as seriously as they have taken up such industries
as boot-making, clothing, milling, and so on. Generally
they have been content to put their farms into the hands
of bailiffs or grieves with no training beyond what an
intelligent workman may pick up as ploughman on a farm.
They do not seem to realise that modern farming is not
a rule-of-thumb business and that a salary of about ;^2oo
a year will not attract an efficient manager to-day. Any

io6 Agriculture and the Community.

man with ability to make a success of farming can do
very much better for himself in the business than that.
I am far from decrying the ability of the farm workers to
rise to managerial positions if they are given the necessary
training and opportunities, but at present they get
practically no training in this direction and the more
enterprising of them leave the industry because there are
not sufficient opportunities for rising to such positions.
The co-operative societies are not to blame because there
are not more competent managers to be had, but they are
to blame for taking such a limited view of what is
necessary, and for attempting to get their farms run by
underpaying managers or for attempting to do without
competent management.

The Future of the Farm Worker.

So far the changes I have suggested in the industry
have been considered chiefly from their effect on the land-
owners, the farmers and the general community. I have
said little, except incidentally, of their effect on the workers
engaged in the industry.

I am convinced that there is no hopeful future for the
agricultural workers if the industry continues to be run
as it is to-day. The farmers are loud in their complaints
that the wages of the Avorkers have reached a level which
makes it impossible for them to carry on cultivation, and
that they will have no option but to lay the land down
to grass. No one who has intimate knowledge of farmers
will take such complaints too seriously. The outcry is
loudest from the least efficient farmers, and they made
the same complaints in the year or two before the war
when the beginnings of trade unionism forced them to pay
a shilling or two more on the miserably low wages then
common. They will always grudge paying wages and
prophesy ruin for the industry because of the rapacity of
the workers. In good times as in bad they always fight
stubbornly against any increase in wages. The workers
need expect nothing from farmers except what they are
able to force from them.

Nor does the creation of Wages Boards alter the position
of the workers in any fundamental way. They may help

107

io8 Agriculture and the Community.

to protect the workers from the sweated conditions which
obtained in some districts, but if we are to judge from the
experience we have had of these Boards, they do nothing
to improve conditions where there is any spirit or fight in
the workers and where they have been accustomed to a
higher standard. It is difficult to judge of their effect so
far, because they have been in operation during a time
of high prices, scarcity of labour, and rising wages. In
the higher paid districts the minimum rates have been of
no service to the workers. My experience has been limited
to Scotland, where wages generally have always been
higher than in England. The minimum rates fixed have
been much below what the workers were able to secure
by their own efforts. In the lower paid districts the
minimum rates did effect an improvement, but they
stereotyped the wages at the minimum rate. Even in
those districts, wherever the workers could be got to
organise and to disregard the minimum rates, they were
able to force higher wages. Where they were content to
rely upon the Wages Committees the wages rose more
slowly and rose less, actually and comparatively, than
where the workers exerted themselves on their own behalf.

But whether the workers organise themselves in trade
unions to exert their maximum power, or rely upon Wages
Boards to secure their wages, there is a limit beyond
which they cannot pass, and that limit is decided by the
net productivity of the industry. The trade unions or the
Wages Boards cannot fix rates beyond what the employers
are able to pay without sacrificing their profits. If they do
the workers will not be employed. They will only be
employed so long as the farmers see an opportunity of

The Future of the Farm Worker. 109

making profit out of their labour. Unless the industry
can be made more productive and leave a larger margin
there is no surplus out of which improved conditions for
the workers can be secured.

I have endeavoured to show the conditions under which
this greater productivity may be sought. I do not hope
for any substantial improvement with our present system
of farming or with the present units of production. Unless
we can reduce the net costs of production, and eliminate
the waste of distribution, we cannot hope to make any
adequate advance in the conditions of the mass of the
workers. The industry cannot afford to carry the present
bankrupt system of landlordism, or to find livings for the
inefficient farmers, if it is to give reasonable conditions
of living to the workers. We have to get rid of mere
rent receivers and profit makers, and turn the industry
into a social service before the future holds any reasonable
hope for the workers.

While I am under no illusions as to the power of trade
unions or Wages Boards, I would guard against any idea
that I think the workers should relax their efforts. Within
the limits inside which they are effective there is urgent
need for better organisation of the workers in their trade
unions. They have their part to play in forcing the pace
of change in the industry. It is not a coincidence that
the most efficient farming is to be found in the highest
paid districts. I will go so far as to say that the higher
wages demanded have been one of the most important
factors in forcing more efficient farming, rather than that
higher wages have been a result of better farming. Even
if the workers should find that they are forcing wages to

no Agriculture and the Community.

the point where farmers find it difficult to carry on, they
should not relax their efforts because of the danger of
driving the farmers out of the business. There is no risk
in agriculture of the workers demanding rates which will
make them a pampered section of the community. If the
farmers cannot pay the wages the workers find necessary
to secure them a reasonable standard of existence, then
the farmers must go and we must organise the industry
so that the workers may be able to enjoy a reasonable
standard of life. The alternative that the workers should
sink back into the condition of semi-starvation so many
of them were in a decade ago does not provide a way out.
It would simply result in delaying the time when the land
would be allowed to tumble down again because the
workers refused to remain. The workers must continue
to exert their industrial pressure at the same time as they
use their political power to secure the necessary changes
in the industry.

As the pressure of the workers on the industry became
effective and the demands of the community for a more
efficient industry were given effect to, the position of the
worker would improve greatly. In a more efficient and a
larger scale industry there would be more opportunities
for the workers specialising. There would be room for
better grading of work, more openings for men prepared
to accept responsibility, and greater scope for training
and advance. Along with this would go better educational
facilities, and the workers would have the opportunity of
sharing in the technical training at present reserved to
the farmers and their families. Rural society would not
be divided horizontally as it is to-day. There would be

The Future oj the Farm Worker. iii

more variety in the rural community and the economic
barriers which confine the workers to the less interesting
and more laborious tasks would be removed. There would
be more opportunity of creating- a real community in place
of the classes whose boundaries are so rigidly fixed to-day.

The future I see for the workers is quite different from
that of the advocates of the " agricultural ladder " who
want to create small holders, who may climb to be small
farmers, and perhaps even large farmers. That is merely
to provide a few outlets here and there by which a few of
the workers can escape, leaving the mass where they are,
working in a small scale precarious industry, where the
net productivity will never admit of more than a bare
subsistence. I want to see the industry made a definite
social service, properly equipped with capital, using the
most scientific methods of production, developing labour-
saving machinery to increase its productivity, and offering
scope to all the workers to become real partners in the
industry. The advocates of small holdings appeal to a
sound instinct in the workers. Because agriculture has
remained a small scale industry and the tradition is yet
strong amongst the workers that they ought not always
to be working for another man's profit, the appeal of a
holding of their own has more force with them than with
other classes of workers. The fact that the active demand
is less than the politicians would have us believe does not
mean that they are reconciled to their present position
and prospects. It is simply because they have too real a
sense of the difficulties of the small holder under modern
conditions and do not believe that it provides the way of
escape.

112 Agriculture and the Community.

But that they will assert their human right to some share
in the control of the industry in which they are engaged,
in common with other workers, is certain. They are
taking the first steps in that direction now by insisting
on their right to determine conditions of employment.
They have made a beginning by securing definite
regulation of working hours, and in fixing other con-
ditions. Other workers began in the same way and have
gone on stage by stage until they find that from merely
defensive efforts they have moved on to positive acts of
control. The demand for a share of control in industry
is being made in all industries and in many countries, and
it is clear that industry in the future must become a
democracy. It is in this direction that the workers in
agriculture will secure their freedom, not by turning back
the industry by individualist division of the land amongst
small cultivators, but in the development of association
and organisation in which the individual will express
himself in his community.

I am well aware that I shall be accused of making a
vague and idealistic claim for the future of the workers in
agriculture. I purposely refrain from making any sug-
gestions how the claim to share in control will be met,
because it would be absurd to lay down any scheme in an
industry which has not yet developed beyond the stage of
private control by a multitude of small capitalists. Any-
thing in the nature of workers' control in present circum-
stances would be merely farcical. The units must be
increased considerably before the workers can hope for
any alteration in their relation to the industry, while the
workers themselves are only at the beginning of

The Fuiwe of the Farm Worker. ii3

org-anisation and collective action, and some time must
elapse before they can evolve a corporate existence. I am
content to mark the trend and to state the claim, leaving-
to time the working- out of the particular method that
may be adopted.

Nor is it my intention to outline any programme of
immediate reforms in the conditions of the workers, or to
discuss such proposals as profit-sharing, about which we
hear so much in these days. The workers are well enough
able to state their claims and will do so as opportunity
and the need arise. There is one reform, however, upon
which the community would be well to insist in its own
interest, and that is the abolition of the tied house. Here
the rural worker labours under a disability which does
more to hamper his freedom and to deny him the status
of a citizen than any other condition. It is not merely
that the tied house is usually a bad house. In the nature
of things it will always be more difficult to apply the
ordinary housing legislation to the tied houses because the
occupiers have not the same power to insist on decent
standards being maintained. The worst defect of the tied
house system is that it makes any real freedom impossible
in rural districts. Where the tied house system is general,
the workers are under the power of the farmers, who are
never diflfident about applying their power. They may
never have to use their power openly but it is always there
and it is always in the back of the mind of the workers
whenever they make any effort to alter conditions. Only
those who have been associated with the workers in any
efforts they have made to improve their conditions can
know the real power the control of the housing gives the

114 Agriculture and the Community.

farmers. Every rural worker who makes hijrnself pro-
minent on behalf of his fellow knows that he is placing
not merely his employment in jeopardy but is risking his
home also and that he must be prepared to face the risk
of being homeless as well as unemployed. It is not good
for the community that the farmers should have such
power over their workers, and it is not good for the State
that any of its workers should feel they are such helots
as the tied house system creates. A minimum of housing
available for the necessary stockmen is required for most
farms, but there is no justification whatever for the
housing of all the workers being in the hands of the
farmers, as is the case in some parts of England and all
over Scotland.

Conclusion.

I have purposely refrained from attempting to lay down
a definite and detailed agricultural policy. By doing so I
have laid myself open to the charge that I have been
prodigal in criticism but niggardly in construction. I
might have anticipated such a charge by detailed proposals,
but I am willing to let my critics have the satisfaction that
I accept their criticism. The diversity of conditions we
have in this country and the scope of the industry make
any serious student chary of attempting to formulate
definite schemes. All we can do is to lay' down a few
general principles and leave the working out of these to
the experience gained in action. Our greatest need is to
accumulate data and to learn by doing, leaving the schemes
to evolve in the light of knowledge gained. I shall
endeavour, however, to summarise the arguments of the
preceding chapters.

The present system of ownership and control of
agricultural land show^s a progressive failure to serve the
needs of the agricultural industry. The landowner cannot
maintain the permanent equipment of the land in a state
to enable farming operations to be carried on efficiently.
The management of agricultural land is not conducted as
a business, but is incidental to the ownership and control
of the land for social and political purposes. The
community has been increasing its control and management
of the land by legislation and administration. I see no
hope for any proper management of agricultural land unless

115

ii6 Agriculture and the Community).

the community makes itself directly responsible for seeing"
that the land is financed and managed so that the best use
can be made of its productive powers. I believe that the
logfical solution to which the community will ultimately be
driven is the nationalisation of land, but until that is
achieved we ought to make the agricultural departments
of the state working through county or local committees,
representative of the industry and the community,
responsible for the maintenance and management of the
permanent equipment of the soil.

Our farming is less productive than it ought to be
because of the failure of the private owners of the soil to
perform the only function which could justify their
existence. If the community accepts responsibility for
the management of the land and provides the necessary
capital, many of our farmers, given reasonable security
of tenure and fair rents, would develop their holdings with
real benefit to the community. There is a class of farmers,
however, who take to the industry as a way of living and
who have neither the skill nor the enterprise to make the
most of the land they hold. We cannot afford to allow
land which is capable of cultivation to be let down because
the holders are content to seek ease and safety where
enterprise and energy would bring a fuller return to the
community. The agricultural departments working
through the county or local representative committees
should be charged with the duty of maintaining a standard
of cultivation and should have power to remove farmers
who in their opinion are not making the best use of their
opportunities. The committees must be prepared to take

Conclusion. 117

over such farms or estates and farm the land for the
community. The committees must accept the responsi-
biUty for carrying out the policy they are prepared to
enforce upon the farmers.

The industry should be made to stand upon its own feet
without protection from foreign competition or guarantee
of prices. So far as we can see that will mean a very
severe test for the industry on the productive side and if
the present organisation of the industry is retained, it may
be that it will not be able to maintain cultivation on the
world prices ruling. There is no good reason why we
should maintain the present organisation of the industry,
if it can be show^n that by working with larger units we
can produce more efficiently and economically. We have
not enough data meantime to enable us to say what is
the best unit for productive purposes, and we ought to
experiment with large scale farms, and at the same time
work steadily to discover costs of production in the
industry as a whole. The large scale farms should be
organised under the agricultural departments and
committees.

I reject the idea that the industry can develop best under
a system of small holdings, both from the point of view of
production and the social effects on the workers. There
will always be room for small holdings in special districts
and in certain forms of production, but these can never be
more than minor incidents in the general agricultural
policy of the country. The great bulk of the land in a
complex civilised community such as ours, maintaining a
large manufacturing population, will give the best return

ii8 Agriculture and the Communit};.

and provide the best social conditions for the workers, if
handled in units employing ample capital and modern
machinery.

The enormous waste in marketing and distribution of
agricultural produce which occurs to-day must be
eliminated. In milk that can best be secured by organising
the distribution by local authorities and in other
commodities by an increase in the operations of consumers'
co-operative societies. Transport is a problem that will
have to be dealt with nationally.

Finally the community should engage in farming
directly ; not only under the agricultural departments and
the agricultural committees, but local authorities should be
encouraged to run their own farms, and co-operative
societies should grow more of the products they distribute.
Even if our local authorities were to engage in the
production of the commodities which they have to buy
in the market for their institutions, and for the maintenance
of many public services, there would be a direct saving of
cost, which would do much to enable the workers engaged
in the industry to secure more reasonable conditions of
existence.

What is the alternative to the policy I have outlined?
If we leave the agricultural industry to muddle along as
it is doing to-day, we must face a progressively
deteriorating land system. The present owners will neither
maintain nor manage the land properly. If we leave
farming to be the private speculation of those engaged in
it, we have either to face a system of protection or bounty,
or allow the land to be let down to the point where the

Conclusion. 119

farmer can make a living or scrape a profit by farmings
safely, but unenterprisingly. Protection or subsidies may
induce a measure of cultivation, but are wasteful expedients
and in this country are never likely to be permanently
adopted. It is more likely that we should find the land
underf armed.

If we are in earnest in seeking to make the best use of
our land, and if we mean to maintain a rural population
with a standard of living that will make it worth while for
the workers to remain in the industry we must make the
industry more productive. The margin in the industry
as it is conducted to-day is not sufficient to provide the
necessary improvement in the condition of the workers,
and unless we are prepared to make fundamental changes,
the danger is that the demand for labour will decrease
and the national resources in the land deteriorate. Private
ownership of land has broken down, and private enterprise
in farming is not capable of meeting the needs of the
community. The only hope lies in the community making
itself responsible for the industry and in setting to work
to organise it as a definite public service.

Printed by
Wood & Son, 5 Mill Street, Perth

Published by "The Scottish Farm Servant"

IPoems by Hnbrew 2)ob6s

^bC XOtbiaU XaUD Paper covers, l/-; Postage, 3d.

" One of the sweet singers of the new order. ... A noteworthy
contribution to modern Scottish poetry, and assures the author a
high place among the latter-day Scottish bards." — Tha Scottish
lic'jiciLK

" Touch the heart and make music in the memory. He sings of
his native shire, and in its own kindly tongue, but he also writes
perfect English." — People's Journal.

" With a heart glowing with sympathy for all that lives, Mr.
Dodds finds his inspiration in the sights and sounds, the joys and
sorrows of a country life. He assails the pride of birth and wealth,
and exalts the native dignity of man. With an undoubted poetic
gift, a love of Nature, a tender touch, and a sense of humour, Mr.
Dodds has produced a creditable book." — Edinburgh Evening ke-ws.

Songs of tbC yields Paper covers, 6d. ; Postage, 2(1.

" This is a poet with a listening attuned ear — a metrist, tender,
true to the earth, homely as all good men, and again shrewdly
witty." — Margaret M. Radford in the Daily Herald.

His gift of simple and sincere melody remains unspoiled. Mr.
Dodds has too certain a touch and too fastidious a sense of poetry
to fall into the pits of doggerel that beset the path of the homely
versifier. These sincere songs, moreover, possess beyond their
lyrical interest, considerable value as literary essays in a charac-
teristic dialect." — Glasgow Evening Xcws.

" Mr. Dodds has a fund of fine poetic feeling and a genuine gift
of unforced, simple expression. He wisely sings only of themes his
heart knows. The humours and pathos of rustic life have no more
cunning an interpreter, nor, indeed, do they need one. Both in the
Doric and in English Mr. Dodds' instinct is sure and his craftsman-
ship delicate." — Educational Journal.

HUtriU San09 Paper covers, 1/-; Postage, 3d.

From any Bookseller, or
"The Scottish Farm Servant," Queensgate, Stirling

^be Scottieb J^arm Servant '

Founded
19 13

" The Scottish Farm Servant " is admittedly the best, freshest,
and most original trade union journal published. It is quite unlike
the usual trade union journal. It is read by farm workers, by
farmers, and by lots of people who don't know anything about
farming, but who appreciate good writing and want to get reliable
information.

You may not like it ; you probably will not agree with it ; but
you can't fail to find it interesting. It is never dull and it does not
beat about the bush.

If you want to know what Scottish agricultural workers are
thinking ab6ut their industry and about all that concerns their daily
lives, you cannot afford to miss it. If you are fortunate enough to
have a taste for braid Scots and the lilt o' a sang, you must read it.

If you were unfortunate enough to be born South of the Border
and your native caution will not allow you to risk twopence on a
journal you have not seen, send us your name and address and we
shall send you a specimen copy.

Published on the ist of the Month.
Price 2d. From any Newsagent.

20 Pages.

Annual Subscription, 2/6 post free.

"The Scottish Farm Servant," Queensgate, Stirling

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES

THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
This book is DUE on the last date stamped below

I

HOV S 0 ^^-

Form L-9
20m -1,* 42 (8519)

AT

LOS ANGELES
LIBRARY

Ui: SIJUTHLRN R[GIONAL LIBRARY f ACUITY

HD

595 Duncan -

i>91a Agriculture and f(f^ 000 576 749 6

thB coimimnity*

DEMCO IMN

MOV n 0 m%i:t-

ED

595

D91a

" 1 "1, ,u j.'.i'L./'ii;l'w|

3

> \? "^l ( lit iJ i>

(if i 1 . ] ' ■

>f

) »/

;i

m

K ,^

\'

I ; \

li ( ) j^ *'?f

\\

M

p }1 / {

iJ'^t

.i.vL

.1,