[TO THE EDITOR 07 THE " SPECTATOR.")
Snr.,—In your article "Speed the Plough" of August 19th you say, agricultural experts tell us that if England were properly farmed we could be nearly self-supporting, and you ask us to imagine what this would mean to us in time of war. I would suggest that we also try to imagine—or better still, to calculate—what this would mean to us in time of peace. I imagine it would mean an increase in our annual national food bill of from two to four hundred millions ; it would mean an enormous increase in the wealth of the landlords synchro- nizing with a heavy fall in the purchasing power of wages, and a loss of ability to compete with the foreigner in trade and farther. it would mean arousing the deep resentment of, and dealing a shattering blow to the prosperity of, both Canada and Australia. As means to secure our national food supply in time of war I would suggest the following alternatives to home production of food as worthy of consideration and likely to prove loss costly :—That we accumulate stocks of essential foodstuffs sufficient to secure our position ; that we construct submarine tunnels to several adjacent countries ; that We increase our Navy to such an extent as to allow of our convoying fleets of merchant vessels; that we so utterly smash our enemies that it will not be necessary to take any additional precautions for many
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