EMERGENCY MEASURES [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] is time
the individual Briton considered tackling the industrial depression. The whole world has outrun the constable." For the whole of civilization it is a case of reculer pour mieux sauter and for the time being life must recede a little towards the primitive, i.e., towards the land.
I suggest that in the present emergency the whole nation should think in terms not of standard of living but temporarily in terms of" mere" living, and above all cultivate a feeling of solidarity in face of national crisis.
Under the war-time threat of starvation we all took enthusiastically to vegetable growing and two generations ago many families lived in health on vegetable diet almost exclusively. Here is a weapon with which to attack unemploy- ment. A small area of land if intensively cultivated will produce enough to feed a family, the folk tilling it will be given an active interest in procuring at least part of their living, and every mouth thus fed is a relief to the burden of the State.
Every available foot of ground ought to be under cultivation, parks (as far as children can spare them), gardens, sides of roads and railways, idle building sites, spare portions of private gardens all ought to be laid under contribution and additional land rented if necessary.
The broad outlines of the scheme are : a local unpaid committee to organize and administer the scheme, a Govern- ment grant for renting land, purchase of tools and seed, every able-bodied person to be obliged by law to accept an allotment if offered, a certain period to bring the ground into bearing and then an automatic reduction in the amount of unemploy- ment relief.
Such a scheme would couple up easily with the formation of co-operative small-holdings, as men who proved willing and able in their "patches" could be given a chance at bigger things.—! am, Sir, &c.,
14 C'utcltffe Grove, Bedford.
JAMES WOOOTNG.
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