25 OCTOBER 1935, Page 17

COUNTRY LIFE

Farm Substitutes The expert committee collected and presided over by Lord Astor, in association with Mr. Rowntree, has come down like a ton of bricks on the theory that you may find any remedy for industrial unemployment in the small holding.

would suggest that the same committee, having now cleared the ground (and indeed killed the chimaera) should devote .itself to the more positive, the less negative, question how 'far the unemployed may be put into touch with the land. 'We hear a good deal about the necessity of physical jerks; SO called, for the unemployed, who often fall into such bad training that they are' not fit for full-time occupation when the 'chance comes. There was never an Indian club or a dumb-bell that could compete with a spade. as an agent of Physical fitness ; and this Useful:jerk has all manner of psycho-. logical and eeonomic advantages over the gymnastics.. designed for the mere purpose of fitness. I do not believe that there is any industrial district, any depressed area • so congested that some work or farm, allotment or garden could not be found. No subject of inquiry would be richer In results than how to bring about such contact. Several tentative efforts of great promise are being made, but we need eoncerted central action and expert advice from those who have collected and collated the evidence. •

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