Rebuilding Britain eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 198 pages of information about Rebuilding Britain.

Rebuilding Britain eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 198 pages of information about Rebuilding Britain.

The next object is to increase the agricultural population.  It has been found again and again in other countries as well as our own that a large and healthy agricultural population is essential to keep up the physique of a nation.  The town folk tend to decay unless constantly replenished by influx from the country.  One good effect of the War has been to direct attention to the vital importance of this subject, and careful inquiries have been made and useful steps taken which have had the effect of greatly increasing the home production of food.

The subject is treated clearly in a popular way in a book published in 1917 on Agriculture after the War by Sir A.D.  Hall, now secretary of the Board of Agriculture, and in fuller detail in the report of a committee of which Lord Selborne was chairman.  The report was published at the beginning of 1918; some of the proposals have been already acted upon, others will no doubt be the basis of future action by the Board of Agriculture and the Ministry of Reconstruction.

Before the War the imports of food less re-exports amounted to about 229 millions annually, or, to put the case in another way, about half of the total food consumed in the British Islands was brought overseas; but “if the most essential foodstuff, wheat, is considered, less than one-fifth of what we required was produced in the country.”  The position was one of terrible insecurity; but for the efficiency of the Navy the country would have been starved into complete submission in this War, and its prosperity and liberty would have been lost for ever.  After the War the financial question of the continued ability of the nation to pay for the food we require is probably the most serious we have to face.  The first remedy for the existing state of things is the increase of tillage.  Assuming that the same pecuniary profit can be obtained by using any land for tillage as for pasture or other purposes, it is obvious that it is right to do everything possible to get that land devoted to tillage, first, as national insurance for the reasons above stated, and, second, to support a larger population under healthy conditions.  One of the great causes of discontent, of vagrancy, and of distress in the sixteenth century was certainly the conversion of large tracts which had formerly been arable into pasture land, because the land laid down as pasture would produce a larger profit to the owner though it supported a much smaller population and required far less labour.  A considerable portion of the rural population was thrown out of employment and the supply of food was diminished.  Again and again the decay of the agricultural population has been the ground of complaint.  Goldsmith speaks of it beautifully and pathetically in the “Deserted Village,” and the process went on, becoming year after year a greater national peril; but the Government and Parliament seemed to care little about it, so that even during the last forty years, according to the statement of Sir A.D. 

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Rebuilding Britain from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.