THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1213. AGRICULTURE IN ENGLAND.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 19 September 1913, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1213. AGRICULTURE IN ENGLAND.

It is. significant that, while the agricultural resources of the overseas dominions, and of New Zealand in particular, are rapidly expanding, agriculture in England is failing to fulfil its functions as an industiy. In a recent article on the subject, the London Times said: "Agriculture is a sick industry in this country. That is the central fact which must be grasiped if the subject is to be understood and profitably discussed. It is sick as a whole, and has long been in that state. It is a chronic invalid. Just at present it has made a little rally, and there are those who advocate leaving it alone in the hope that it may pick up without interference. There is something to be said for that view, which is inspired by •fear of the wrong sort of interference. It is better td let an invalid alone than to handle him roughly, and the possibility of misdirected handling is near enough to justify some apprehension. Hence the need of a careful diagnosis, which takes account not only of this or that symptom, but of the patient's whole condition. No good will be done to agriculture, and by consequence to those dependent on it, by knocking it about. But judicious treatment may do something for it and them. Weak spots may be strengthened and promising tendencies may be encouraged. But it ig first desirable to recognise what

cannot be done. On tlie one hand, it ig impossible to go back on the past, and on the other to effect a sudden and general revolutionary change. With regard to the former, it is quite useless to try to re-create the state of things which existed —or is supposed to have existed —-before the commons' enclosures of the 18th century. The course taken then and in the next century was really determined by the need of -feeding the people. The landed gentry made money out of the enclosures and the general activity of farming at that time, and not they only, but the tenant farmers and yeomen. But they would not have made money or have carried out those extensive improvements, on which they also spent a great deal of money, in the latter part of the 18th century, if it had not been for the growing needs of the, then rapidly increasing urban population which could not be fed from abroad. In the 18th century the situation changed, and it was the turn of landowners and farmers to pay the price. It was cheaper to buy food in unlimited quantities from abroad with the produce of mine and factory than to grow it at home; and agriculture fell into a chronic decline, through which it has .been' nursed by *the eleemosynary support of wealth derived from other sources, just as the labourer was nursed by the old Poor Law in the the first third of the 19th century. Now we. seem to be entering on another phase, which offers an opportunity, not of retracing the course already traversed, but of working put i a new one. The world's food demand has-overtaken the and home agriculture shows signsof reviving. The time is favourable for an advance on lines suited to .modern conditions and, agreeable to modern tendencies.' It ckri, wef believe, be 'done, • and aft; encouraging sign, is the large amount of exhibited by proposals emanating from very different quarters. But some things must _be avoided if any success is to be achieved. One of them is placing fresh burdens on the land. Under whatever guise it is hidden, the only effect would be to depress agriculture" deeper into an eleemosynary condition,; and to stifle the chance which seems to offer of lifting it out. Another thing to be avoided is to use the ■ occasion as an opportunity for pursuing other aims, and particularly for gratifying or promoting class hostility! We believe that the relations of the several classes concerned in agriculture need readjustment and can be.readjusted with advantage, but only by keeping steadily in view the interest of the industry itself and as a whble. It embraces all sorts of conditions, and what suits one set of circumstances is totally inapplicable to another. There i 3 a pronounced tendency to fasten on particular points, such as low wages or lack of cottages, and to regard them as the whole problem or as ends in themselves without reference td the rest. We do not under-,rate their importance, but they are only symptoms, and what agriculture needs is not the treatment of symptoms but new life. We agree that the status of the labourers/deserves the first consideration, but they will not be benefited generally or for long by anything which presses hard " on the industry whereby they live."