In Tuesday's Times Mr. Charles Bathurst gives some very disturbing
figures as to the way in which our acreage under wheat is shrinking year by year, with a consequently increas- ing dependence upon the outside world for our food supplies. Two years ago, be tells us, we obtained four-fifths of our wheat supply from abroad. To-day we are obtaining over five-sixths. Again, while the Britieh arable area shrank during the previous decade by an annual average of 100,000 acres, it shrank last year by no less than 277,000. He goes on to say that we could without serious difficulty treble our wheat area, and thereby supply the requirements of half our present population. The chief desideratum is the employ- ment of capital. But capital will never return to agriculture unless there is a feeling of security, and you cannot have security in any industry which "is being seriously under- mined by overtaxation, continuous threats, and the proposed uneconomic and revolutionary treatment by the Government of rural problems, dictated by urban faddists."
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