SPEED THE PLOUGH.
IT is agreed upon by all but a small minority that our industrial and fiscal methods must be modified or reconstructed if we are to enjoy national security, and if we are to win enough prosperity to pay our debts, and quickly to return to the same relative position which we occupied before the war. The first purpose would be imperative in itself even if the second did not exist. Some political economists, who have reconciled themselves to the necessity of a change, would give national security as the sole justification for their new faith ; but for ourselves, although we admit that to be the very first object in order of importance, we hope that other ends may also be served. For instance, we do not sup- pose for a moment that, after the manufacturing and agri- cultural parts of the population have tasted the high wages which the war has brought them, they are going contentedly to relapse to the old rates. They will make a great struggle to hold the ground they have accidentally won, and it will be natural for them to do so. But the majority of employers will not be able to continue to pay these wages unless there is a new standard of productivity. Employers are unfortunately not in possession of a mythical wages-fund out of which wages can be distributed to any extent without relation to the productivity of the labour which is paid for. Capital and Labour are a union of forces ; each must wither away without the help of the other. And it is not too much to hope, or at all events to dream, that if a temporarily higher standard of living has incited the workers to demand that Capital shall pay out more, they will also learn the lesson that it all depends upon themselves whether Capital can do it ; that it is their interest and their business, and no one else's, to pass into the hands of Capital the extra amount which is to be paid out in the form of wages. Is there no apostle of Labour who will tell his own people two simple truths : that what is needed is an acceleration of Labour, not a retardation, and that labour-saving devices and appliances are in the long run the best weapons of Labour, because they increase the output, which increases capital, which in its turn increases wages ? Opinion in all classes of politicians is in a fluid state. Here is an opportunity, such as there never was before, for a Chrysostom of Labour to kill with indignation and burning ridicule the ideal which condemns Labour to the appalling dulness of adapting itself to the speed of the slowest. We know that under the present conditions justification can be pleaded for the practice ; but the lessons of the war will have been wasted on the industrial world if the conditions are not rearraned, with the consent of both sides, so that the motive of the " ca' canny " policy loses all its force. Acceleration is the characteristic of our industries now. Is there to be a deliberate declension after the war V Surely such madness will be averted.
In this article we want to write only of agriculture. We introduce the subject in connexion with the whole industrial outlook, for the simple reason that it is too often forgotten that agriculture is, an industry like other industries. It is even more than that, of course, for it is the greatest of our industries, and the most important from every point of view to our national safety and well-being. A very simple illustration, which we think we have seen in the writings of Mr. A. D. Hall, will show that British agriculture is not regarded in popular thought as an industry in the ordinary sense. People are accustomed to take shares in farming companies in the British Dominions and Colonies, in South America, and indeed nearly all over the world. They read quotations of the value of the shares of those companies in the newspapers day by day. They would be quite startled, however, at the idea of investing their money in a farming company at home. The typical British farmer, whose father and grandfather were farmers before him, would probably be more startled still. He would be filled with suspicion. He would think that sharp men of business who understood book-keeping, and rigging the market, and all kinds of mysterious and nefarious practices (not in the least connected with each other, but nevertheless vaguely associated in his mind) were going somehow to overreach him and squeeze him out of his farm by unfair competition. But his suspicions, in reality, answer themselves, as he would see if he would look the matter in the face. If British agriculture is a business of national extent—as it is and must be—there is room in it for all ; there is room for the small-holder, and the farmer of the moderate-sized farm, and the owner or owners of large industrialized farms, just as there is room for the little shopkeeper who sells newspapers and tobacco in the same world which contains the middle-sized shops and the great stores which are • the property of limited companies. This is only an illustration, yet it has a good deal of relevance, for if the habit of thinking about agriculture as an industry were widely spread it would be much easier to convince people that, both as an essential industry and as our largest industry, it will be absolutely necessary not only to preserve it but to develop it after the war.
At present, unfortunately, the conditions of permanence and progress do not exist. It is a fact that, in spite of the recovery of the price of wheat in recent years, the number of acres of arable which have been brought down to grass has con- tinually increased. The high-water mark of arable farming was reached in 1872 ; since then the decline of arable has been unbroken. Before the war this seemed much more a subject for regret than for alarm. The general opinion was that it was, of course, very sad that the agricultural population should dwindle rather than grow, but that it was unreasonable, in spite of the desirability of having a prosperous and contented rural population, to help agriculture at the expense of the rest of the community. " If we cannot produce the food cheaply enough at home," so ran the argument, " we must depend more and more on supplies from overseas. The logic of the facts simply points to an absolutely invincible Navy, which will keep the trade routes safe, and not to an artificial protection or subsidizing of a home industry which cannot stand alone. For the rest, the spread of agricultural education and better methods will certainly do a great deal for agriculture. We need not fear that it will really perish. That is only agrarian talk. The love of Englishmen for the land is far too deep-seated for such a failure." We confess that the argument seemed to us satisfactory, and, indeed, we still think that, if the trade routes could be kept free from submarines, an industrially enlightened view of agriculture would prevail, and ultimately make our farming as pro- ductive as it is in Germany or Denmark or Belgium. There are some very able and highly scientific farmers in England to-day who farm on businesslike methods, and who have proved that even under the present conditions they can win a handsome return on their capital, which they are, therefore, prepared to stake to the full extent of their capacity. If only all the farmers were like them, there would be no need for any nurturing policy by the State. But we have to recognize that in our imperfect country all farmers are not like them ,• that, indeed, there are few like them, and that the temper of the typical farmer causes him to refuse absolutely to take risks. It would be absurd to blame the typical farmer. He still remembers the cycle of bad seasons, such as that from 1879-1883, which exhausted the capital of the holders of small and middle-sized farms. If he increases his arable, he is " out " to make larger profits, but he is also exposed to corre- spondingly heavy losses. He therefore plays for safety. Let us be reasonable, remember that farming is an industry, and that we must expect the farmer to be cautious in the same degree as men engaged in any other industry.
Meanwhile the nation is obviously not secure with the productivity of the land not increasing, and the prospect before us that submarine developments may be much more serious in a future war than they have been in this war. We by no means underrate what the submarines have accom- plished,i but they have given us only a slight warning of a situation in the future that every man can imagine for himself. We do not forget that a Channel tunnel and an Irish tunnel would to some extent tend to make us independent of the chances of the sea, but we take it that the solution of our difficulty primarily requires a great increase in the pro- ductiyity of the land. How, then, is the farmer to be per- suaded to bring more land under the plough so as to lessen to the utmost possible extent our reliance upon oversee supplies I We said in an article a few weeks ago that we should not think of putting any obstacle in the way of inducements to farmers which seem to promise them the financial security they desire if it is shown that in return we shall get national security through an increased productivity of the land. Many agricul- turists, who were not formerly partisans of any State inter- ference or help, now think that there is no hope of developing agriculture at home unless you attract the labourer by a minimum wage, and give the farmer a guarantee that he will be able to pay that wage (unhappily it is the invariable rule that one act of State intervention has always to be set off by another) by fixing a minimum price for wheat. Others, of course, would advocate a tariff. Others, again, suggest a bonus for land freshly brought under the plough. Personally, we should greatly prefer a bonus to a tariff, because it is not an entangling thing like a tariff ; it has not uncertain and unexplored ramifications, and it does not of itself create intrigue and bitterness between interests. It can be with- drawn, and the State in making the direct payments knows exactly where it stands and what the cost is. These are all matters for discussion. What we are sure of is that the end of the war will present such an opportunity for the revival of agriculture as may never occur again. It will probably be unique. Farming is by far the most conservative industry in the country, and if it is not shaken out of its groove it may remain there for ever. With such an object in view, we should look very indulgently on expedients—for what we might call experimental or shaking-up purposes—which we should not defend for their own sakes, or as being in the least economically desirable in themselves. What we have to create is an atmosphere of confidence. The farmer must be bidden to speed the plough on terms which seem to him sufficiently encouraging. Without that confidence he will not go ahead. It may be intrinsically absurd that ho should not speed the plough as it is, for the wealth is certainly hidden in the land ; but under the conditions of British farming we must look at the facts from the farmer's point of view. British land is deplorably under-farmed.
The public. ought to understand that other countries less dangerously situated than we are for receiving external supplies produce far more food than we do even though their climate is more rigorous and their soil less fertile. If agricul- ture in Britain produced what it certainly ought to produce, the wages which are suggested as a minimum could be easily paid out of the profits of farming ; and the minimum price of wheat, if the standard of living attains the point which we expect for it in future, would be normally below the market price. But, again we say, the farmer must be induced to believe all this. A fortnight ago the Board of Agriculture published a deeply interesting survey of the recent develop- ment of German agriculture by Mr. T. H. Middleton. He showed that the German farmer feeds from seventy to seventy- five persons per aore of cultivated land, whereas the British farmer feeds only from forty-five to fifty. This ascendancy of the German farmer has been gained in the last forty years. Some people will argue, of course, that this is the result of the German tariff ; but Mr. Middleton does not encourage the view that the tariff is in itself the explanation. " It was not," he says, " the tariff, but the policy of which the tariff was an expression that vitalized German agriculture." The policy to which Mr. Middleton refers is, of course, that of making the farmer feel that the nation is behind him in his conduct of an essential industry. While we imported wheat, Germany decided to grow wheat. It is not a question of Tariff Reform or Free Trade ; it is a question of giving reason- able assurances to the farmer that he will not suffer from the mere fickleness of the climate, or from any changes and chances of the industry beyond his control. The German farmer has performed his feat on soil less fertile than ours, and in a climate ordinarily less favourable. There is much more in Mr. Middle- ton's survey that we should like to discuss, but our space is exhausted. We can only summarize the facts by saying that security for capital and sufficiency of labour were the two points aimed at in the " plough " policy of Germany. Those are two fundamentals which, by some means or other, we must also secure. Our readers know our view that another fundamental factor in the restoration of agriculture is the provision of cheap cottages. This lies at the heart of the whole matter. It is useless to raise a man's wages by law and then mulct him of the whole rise by an increase in rent. We say no more on that subject now, because we may be allowed to take it for granted.
We earnestly hope that people who have not thought much about agriculture, but have regarded it as a technical occu- pation entirely outside their experience, will turn their atten- tion to this matter. There is no time to waste. The end of the war will be an unparalleled opportunity for vitalizing the oldest and best and most important of industries, as was urged recently with great force in the Minority Report of the Departmental Committee which inquired into the settlement and employment of soldiers and sailors on the land.
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