One expert pins faith to large farms; another to small holdings. How
agreeable to think that both are right. We cannot afford to neglect any
type of holding; all must be developed and supported, for all serve
vital purposes. For instance, the great development of small holdings in
Germany is mainly responsible for the plentiful supply of labour on the
land there; "until measures can be devised for greatly increasing the
area under holdings of less than 100 acres in Britain we are not likely
to breed and maintain in the country a sufficient number of that class
of worker which will be required if we are greatly to extend our arable
land": Mr. T. H. Middleton, Assistant Secretary to the Board of
Agriculture. But I am not going into the _pros_ and _cons_ of the
holdings question. I desire rather to point out here that a moment is
approaching, which will never come again, for the resettling of the
land.
A rough census taken in 1916 among our soldiers gave the astounding
figure of 750,000 desirous of going on the land. That figure will shrink
to a mere skeleton unless on demobilisation the Government is ready with
a comprehensive plan. The men fall roughly into two classes: those who
were already on the land; those who were not. The first will want to go
back to their own districts, but not to the cottages and wages they had
before the war. For them, it is essential to provide new cottages with
larger gardens, otherwise they will go to the Dominions, to America, or
to the towns. A fresh census should be taken and kept up to date, the
wants of each man noted, and a definite attempt made now to earmark
sites and material for building, to provide the garden plots, and plan
the best and prettiest type of cottage. For lack of labour and material
no substantial progress can be made with housing while the war is on,
but if a man can see his cottage and his ground ready, in the air, he
will wait; if he cannot, he will be off, and we shall have lost him.
Wages are not to fall again below twenty-five shillings, and will
probably stay at a considerably higher level. The cottage and the garden
ground for these men will be the determining factor, and that garden
ground should be at least an acre. A larger class by far will be men who
were not on the land, but having tasted open-air life, think they wish
to continue it. A fresh census of this class and their wants should be
taken also. It will subdivide them into men who want the life of
independent medium and small holders, with from 100 to 20 acres of land,
and men who with 5 or 10 acres of their own are willing to supplement
their living by seasonal work on the large farms. For all a
cut-and-dried scheme providing land and homes is absolutely essential.
If they cannot be assured of having these within a few months of their
return to civil life, they will go either to the Dominions or back to
the towns. One of them, I am told, thus forecasts their future wants:
"When we're free we shall have a big spree in the town; we shall then
take the first job that comes along; if it's an indoor job we shan't be
able to stick it and shall want to get on the land." I am pretty sure
he's wrong. He will want his spree, of course; but _if he is allowed to
go back to a town job_ he is not at all likely to leave it again. Men so
soon get used to things, and the towns have a fierce grip. For this
second class, no less than the first, it is vital to have the land
ready, and the cottages estimated for. I think men of both these
classes, when free, should be set at once to the building of their own
homes and the preparation of their land. I think huts ought to be ready
for them and their wives till their homes are habitable. A man who takes
a hand in the building of his house, and the first work on his new
holding, is far less likely to abandon his idea of settling on the land
than a man who is simply dumped into a ready-made concern. That is human
nature. Let him begin at the beginning, and while his house is going up
be assisted and instructed. Frankly, I am afraid that in the difficulty
of fixing on an ideal scheme and ideal ways of working it, we shall
forget that the moment of demobilisation is unique. Any scheme, however
rough and ready, which will fix men or their intention of settling on
the land in Britain at the moment of demobilisation will be worth a
hundred better-laid plans which have waited for perfection till that one
precious moment is overpast. While doctors quarrel, or lay their heads
together, the patient dies.
The Government, I understand, have adopted a scheme by which they can
secure land. If they have not ascertained from these men what land they
will want, and secured that land by the time the men are ready, that
scheme will be of little use to them.
The Government, I gather, have decided on a huge scheme for urban and
rural housing. About that I have this to say. The rural housing ought to
take precedence of the urban, not because it is more intrinsically
necessary, but because if the moment of demobilisation is let slip for
want of rural cottages, we shall lose our very life blood, our future
safety, perhaps our existence as a nation. We must seize on this one
precious chance of restoring the land and guaranteeing our future. The
towns can wait a little for their housing, the country cannot. It is a
sort of test question for our leaders in every Party. Surely they will
rise to the vital necessity of grasping this chance! If, when the danger
of starvation has been staring us hourly in the face for years on end,
and we have for once men in hundreds of thousands waiting and hoping to
be settled on the land, to give us the safety of the future--if, in such
circumstances, we cannot agree to make the most of that chance, it will
show such lack of vision that I really feel we may as well throw up the
sponge. If jealousy by towns of country can so blind public opinion to
our danger and our chance, so that no precedence can be given to rural
needs, well, then, frankly we are not fit to live as a nation.
I am told that Germany has seen to this matter. She does not mean to be
starved in the future; she intends to keep the backbone of her country
sound. She, who already grew 80 per cent. of her food, will grow it all.
She, who already appreciated the dangers of a rampant industrialism,
will take no further risks with the physique of her population. We who
did not grow one-half of our food, and whose riotous industrialism has
made far greater inroads on our physique; we who, though we have not yet
suffered the privations of Germany, have been in far more real
danger--we shall talk about it, say how grave the situation is, how
"profoundly" we are impressed by the need to feed ourselves--and we
shall act, I am very much afraid, too late.
There are times when the proverb: "Act in haste and repent at leisure"
should be written "Unless you act in haste you will repent at leisure."
This is such a time. We can take, of course, the right steps or the
wrong steps to settle our soldiers on the land; but no wrong step we can
take will be so utterly wrong as to let the moment of demobilisation
slip. We have a good and zealous Minister of Agriculture, we have good
men alive to the necessity, working on this job. If we miss the chance
it will be because "interests" purblind, selfish and perverse, and a
lethargic public opinion, do not back them; because we want to talk it
out; because trade and industry think themselves of superior importance
to the land. Henceforth trade and industry are of secondary importance
in this country. There is only one thing of absolutely vital importance,
and that is agriculture.