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We know that the butcher pays little more than sixDence a pound for the meat which he sells as high as wo shillings. We know that great consignments of market gardeners' produce and fruit yield very little, and [sometimes nothing at all to the grower. The consumer must pay a prohibitive price for a small portion of the consignments that reach certain markets; apparently a great part of the rest is destroyed to keep the prices up. This is not peculiar to the farming industry. I was told a little while ago of certain imported fruit so delayed in its arrival on these shores that two ships were coming to port together, and in order to keep up prices one ship was instructed to jettison her cargo. At the end of May, while travelling in the neighbourhood of Grimsby, I heard that so much cod had been brought in by the trawlers that the price they received was three-farthings a pound. In the shops cod was costing $ from 1s. to 1s. 4d. a pound, and truckloads had been sent away to serve as manure! While men, women, and children live on food out of tin, tons of freshly grown produce are consigned to the incinerators.

Wherever we make inquiry we find that the consumer's approaches to the necessities of life are guarded by unscrupulous middlemen, who resort to every device including this wanton destruction of food that the country needs. He was no socialist, communist, or demagogue, but a sober and distinguished professor of a great university who said to me, 'I would welcome a revolution in this country, a revolution that would release the people's food from the clutches of the middleman."

It is part of the scheme of the established order of things to obscure the issues, and thousands of farmers in this country to-day are convinced that the Government is their enemy because it will not hand over or guarantee sufficient of the nation's resources to enable them to farm well, badly, or indifferently, at a reasonable profit. In truth the Government is not their enemy, though it is greatly to blame for appointing the Linlithgow Commission and ignoring the resultant issues; the fault is with the farmer himself, who, if he did but use his power and employ the motive force of co-operation, would be enabled to dictate to the middleman who now

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dictates to him. Unfortunately, there is no chance of cooperation coming about until the farmer is hit even harder than he is to-day. When he has no alternative between co-operation and starvation he may elect to choose the former; but at present he resists all those who remind him of the old adage, United we stand, divided we fall.' He allows the dealers of the ring to buy his cattle, his sheep, his pigs, and his calves, and to re-sell them in private when the market is over. He allows the millers to settle the price of his corn and milling offals; he allows unscrupulous market men to dispose of his vegetables and his fruit; trusts control his fertilisers and combines his agricultural machinery. All manner of vested interests dictate the figure at which he must buy, and at which he must sell, while he clamours through his Farmers' Union for easier conditions that would result in all probability in a still more determined attack upon his produce by those who are his real masters.

That a farming crisis is within sight seems likely, but by no means certain. The wheat position may be much improved by reduced supplies from Canada, by the drought in the Eastern hemisphere, and by the Canadian wheat pool. The lords of the packing trade having composed their differences the price of imported meat will tend to harden. The embargo on pork and veal is helping the farmer; sugar beet is bringing tens of thousands of acres under effective, even intensive, cultivation; the poultry industry is showing considerable profits, and the best farmers on the good lands are holding their own. But the rank and file whose acts of husbandry are not above suspicion, and even good men who bought their holdings when prices were at the top, partly because they could not help themselves, and partly because they believed that the Corn Production Act had come to stay, together with other men whose holdings have been most affected by changing conditions; all these, and their name is legion, are in grave trouble. They need assistance, not in doles or subsidies or protection, because towns rule our policy and towns will not suffer any Government to live if it even appears to threaten action that might tend to raise prices. Relief must come from the curbing of the activities of those who

ive on the labour of others, and from further efforts to enable the farmer to help himself. In this regard the Ministry of Agriculture continues to do truly valuable work, and as at present organised it provides every farmer with sound advice and direction. The matter for regret lies in the discovery of an ever-increasing number of farmers who have lost heart; who do not want to make any further endeavours; who have been taught to believe that they are within their rights in demanding the measure of assistance that they have no chance of receiving. Yet in the long run no Government can do more than see that every class of the community receives fair play. Given this, it must stand or fall, as economic conditions may direct; and we should do well to bear in mind that the agriculturist is no worse off than the manufacturer who suffers in like fashion from foreign competition; indeed, he is better off. The Board of Trade does not run model factories in order to teach manufacturers how best to compete in markets of the world; it does not place business experts in all industrial centres to advise the man who does not know how to conduct his own affairs ; it does not train young men in business or establish model centres in every part of the country. But the Ministry of Agriculture does these things for farmers, and many of them do not even take the trouble to respond to the chances placed in their way; while too many among them are ready to join in any foolish outcry against what they call Government extravagence. 'Agriculture wants more light,' wrote Sir David Hall, the distinguished scientific adviser to the Ministry of Agriculture in 1913 at the end of a three-year-long investigation of rural conditions. The need remains, but the sources of supply have been increased almost beyond belief, and at last the farmer is realising the value of what is put before him.

Agricultural England in 1927 suggests that the country is passing through a severe testing time. When trouble came in 1879 and the following years, thousands of the less competent farmers were ruined; but men who were made of sterner stuff came from other parts, and by the sweat of their brow rather than the sweat of those they employed, scorning delights and living

laborious days, restored derelict acres to fertility. There was no aid from Whitehall in those evil times; there were no Agricultural Colleges or Institutes, no Advisory Centres or District Commissioners; no expert men who could be called upon at need to tell how a problem should be grasped. The road went uphill all the way and only the strong men reached the top. Today, although the difficulties before agriculture are enormous, they are not insuperable, but the farmer has to take advantage of new opportunities, to study changed conditions, to keep his eyes and ears open, and above all to remember that the acts of husbandry to which he is accustomed are not immortal, but must yield, if need be, to the changing times. In every county I have visited I have seen a certain number of men in whom the new spirit is striving: they are carrying on, and some are making money. Of those who maintain the old traditions, a few thrive, like the cottage farmers of the North Riding of Yorkshire, by dint of sheer hard labour from the rising of the sun even to the going down thereof; but for those who cling to the older fashion and the easier life that was possible during the profit-yielding years of the war, there can be no hope. It is their cries of distress that have led so many people to imagine that agriculture is in ruins and that the State must come to its aid. Rather it is the old method of farming that has been weighed and found wanting. If and when farmers will come together, stand up against their oppressors and unite in handling their own products, agriculture in England will enter upon a golden period, because there are fifty million clients on its doorstep waiting to be fed and paying so high a price for what they receive, that the farmer needs no more than the producer's fair share of it to leave all or most of his troubles behind him. Only the weather will remain incalculable.

S. L. BENSUSAN.

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Art. 4.-THE MYSTERY OF STRATEGY.

1. A Study of War. By Admiral Sir Reginald Custance. Constable, 1924.

2. Paris, or the Future of War. By Captain B. H. Liddell Hart. Kegan Paul, 1925.

3. The Direction of War. By Major-General Sir W. D. Bird. Cambridge University Press, 1925.

4. Governments and War. By Major-General Sir F. Maurice. Heinemann, 1926.

5. The Foundations of the Science of War. By Colonel J. F. C. Fuller. Hutchinson, 1926.

26. The Remaking of Modern Armies. By Captain B. H. Liddell Hart. Murray, 1927.

7. Field Service Regulations. Operations. Issued by the Army Council. Editions 1909, 1919, 1924.

FEW will deny that in the Science, or Art, of War-the terms are used indifferently-a crisis has arisen. The tremendous struggle which was brought to an end nine years ago led to such changes that even now we have scarcely grasped the full signification of the alterations thus caused. The very fact, however, that to the possible field of operations a third element has been added should alone be sufficient to make us realise that many an old dogma must go by the board and many an old shibboleth must be left unsaid. Even in the two elements of land and sea, associated with war since the dawn of history, the introduction of arms and weapons never previously imagined must obviously cause us seriously to take stock of our convictions and beliefs. Nevertheless, even at this parting of the ways we are still uncertain as to which road to take. Some seem undecided as to whether we should advance at all. A portent, however, is visible which can hardly fail to convince even the most hesitating that a decision can no longer be delayed. Mechanisation is spreading throughout the army. At the time of writing an Experimental Force of all-mechanised units is being tried in this country. It may be that this new force will cause further profound and drastic changes. If the forecasts of some are fulfilled the result will be that infantry-hitherto the Queen of Battles-will not merely be deposed but eliminated. Such a change, when Vol. 249.-No. 494.

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