THE STATE AND THE FARM.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—My attention has been called to Mr. Philip Morrell's article under the above heading, in your issue of December 22nd. He criticises (but in no unfriendly spirit) an article upon Denmark, contributed jointly by Mr. Christopher Tumor and myself to last month's Nineteenth Century. Mr. Morrell believes in self-help, organization and greater efficiency among British farmers. So do we. His outlined programme for the promotion of these desiderata is admirable. But the State must at least provide fair basic conditions for the existence, and persistence, of a flourishing rural community ; and these, I opine, are not yet forthcoming in this country, as they are in Denmark and most other civilized countries. As, unlike Denmark, we are governed—and our rural destinies controlled —by our urban populations, it is essential that the latter should possess some sympathy with, and realization of, "the national importance of a flourishing agriculture."
Mr. Morrell's aims and those of Mr. Christopher Tumor are surely not mutually antagonistic or alternative ; they arc complementary, and, in fact, interdependent :—
" These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone."
The truth is that for the salvation of rural Britain there are, alas ! all too few Christopher Tumors, Philip Morrells, Henry Rews, Edward Strutts, and Lord Ernles. Their ideals are the same, and their points of contact far more numerous and important than their points of divergence. We cannot afford to let them quarrel in public. Our dear old country badly needs them all, and many more like them.—I am, Sir,
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