The Revival of Agriculture
The Organization of Farming. Vol. I, Production. By G. T.
Garrett. (Cambridge : W. Heifer. 6s.)
Ix all tire propaganda which is now going on for the revival of agriculture there are two main threads of argument, the economic and the social. They are very much confused. The politician, who says that such revival is necessary for our economy, is apt to prove it by means of arguments which show that it is necessary for our defence in time of war or for the maintenance of our standard of health and political stability. These, however, are not one thing but several, and it is one of the virtues of Mr. Garrett that, though he deals adequately with both sets of arguments, he keeps them severely separate. Ile comes well equipped with knowledge and experience to his task, as all who have read his book, Hundred Acre Farm, will know ; yet he is not confined to the farmer's point of view, but can enter also into that of the farm labourer or member of a local authority. The result is a book which should be read by every fanner and every politician in this difficult time for agriculture. If they would but do so our troubles would be much nearer to a solution.
Most of the troubles of agriculture Mr. Garrett traces to the fact that so much of our farming is done in uneconomic units— that is to say on farms which are not of the right size for their type and method of farming. He therefore sets out in his first three chapters to discover the main types of farm in the country, and to determine what is the economic unit in each type. With his arguments we cannot deal here, except to say that, in spite of the complexity of the subject, he succeeds in being clear without being dogmatic or arbitrary. We par- ticularly like his analysis of the different types of small- holding to be found in this country and of the factors which contribute to their success or failure. It is a subject which we have long wished to see properly treated, and Mr. Garratt is particularly good where he deals with the results of relying on " the magic of property " without a proper agricultural credit system. The gist of his remarks, to summarize where summary is an injustice, is that the farmer of any type who is working an uneconomic unit is either spoiling his land or getting less return from his capital and labour than he could get in other fields.
Mr. Garratt then turns to the arguments of the small- holding propagandists. His economic examination allows him to estimate the limits to the expansion of this type of farming. He does, however, find that it has sufficient economic argu- ments in its favour to allow, if it be properly administered, for considerable expansion, and he endorses the arguments which emphasize the excellence of its social or biological results. The restrictions which he would lay down are dictated purely by the fact that certain types of land are totally unsuited for small farming, and that many types of specialist farming are within sight of a saturated market.
What is more urgently needed however, is, in his opinion, redistribution of the land in order gradually to convert the present uneconomic units into efficient ones, without favouring any type of farm markedly more titan the rest. In order to achieve this result it would be necessary, he thinks, to have some system of land tenure which would be equivalent to State landlordism, since under the present system redistribu- tion of all sorts is held up and the rationalization of the countryside paralysed.
Finally there is the problem of marketing. No solution of the problem of British agriculture would be complete which left this question untouched, and Mr. Garratt is devoting to it a complete volume, which has yet to appear. We shall await it eagerly, in the hope that Mr. Garratt may be able to give to opinion as fair yet firm a lead as he has here given on the subject of production.
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