War And The Land

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 146, 10 April 1942, Page 4

War And The Land

NE _ of the discoveries of the war, depressing to some and exciting to others, has been the inadequacy of go-as-you-please farming. In spite of the fact that millions of acres have been brought into production in Britain that had not known a plough for generations, the food situation is causing deep anxiety. It is oaly a few days since the Minister of Agriculture declared that "the harvest of 1942 n:ight well be a critical factor in the future not only of Britain but of the whole world." Though increases had been recorded in every direc-tion-a third more wheat, fifty per cent. more potatoes, and nearly twice as much oats and vegetables-the Minister found it necessary to say that this was not enough, and that those farmers who "could not raise their standards" would have to make way for others or submit to more drastic control. It may, of course, be argued that the same story could be told of all forms of production, secondary as well as primary, and that the average farm has stood up to the demands of total war quite as well, so far, as the average factory. It probably has. It may have done better, relatively, than the factory, since Britain has been an industrial country for a hundred and fifty years, and during all that time has neglected agriculture. But relative merit does not win wars. There is almost no limit to the possible expansion of industry, if materials can be found for the machines and food for the men and women who operate them. British tank production, for example, has increased by 500 per cent. since Dunkirk. Shipbuilding is up 400 per cent. since the battle of the Atlantic began. But agriculture cannot yet show an all-round increase of 50 per cent. in spite of the fact that six million acres of old pasture have been brought under the plough and we know that the war will be lost if Britain’s forty million people cannot be adequately fed. The position is, in fact, so serious, and the prospect of improvement so uncertain, that one of the most cautious agricultural authorities in England, the veteran Sir A. D. Hall, has recently joined.sthe ranks of the land nationalisers. So far as we know, the book in which he develops his case has not yet reached New Zealand. But it is reviewed in several of the most recently arrived periodicals, and these reviews leave no doubt at all that for British agriculture at any rate he sees no economic escape from the State ownership of all land devoted to primary production,