Mr. G. H. Roberts, the Minister for . Labour, discussed at Maidstone
last Saturday the neglect of agriculture, which had for half-a-century been the Cinderella of British industries. In 1913 we paid two hundred millions for imported food, exclusive of sugar ; in 1915 we were paying eighty-five millions more. If we had spent a few millions to encourage agriculture before the war, that would have
been called wasteful expenditure. After the war we should still have to pay uncontrolled food prices in foreign markets. If Germany had neglected her agriculture, depending largely on foreign food, the Allied blockade would have brought her to her knees long ago. We must have home production, even if shipping interests had to suffer. Guaranteed prices alone would not revolutionize agriculture ; it required education, organization, and co-operation—the secret of Denmark's success in farming.
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