DISSIPATING OUR SUBSTANCE

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LXII, Issue 76, 23 September 1941, Page 3

DISSIPATING OUR SUBSTANCE

"The average inhabitant of this island knows less about, soil, on which lie depends for his existence, than about wireless-telephony." "Britain's pre-war imports of food used to run to over £400,000,000 a year, our home production of food was valued (wholesale) at about £250,000, a year. There were still many who had insufficient -to eat." "The mean rate of soil-formation is estimated at one. inch in 10,000 years," yat "the Missouri basin has lost an average of seven inches of topsoil in 24 years, the biggest new Californian desert has advanced in places 40 miles in one year, destroying- 2500 farms. Australia is probably going faster than America. . . . Since the last war we have lost 500,000 acres, much of it the best farming land, to housej schemes and roads . . . gone for! ever." Another farmer is speaking, writes Mr H. E. Bates in-the Spec-! tator. He is trying to tell his fellow men, in terms of plain factj and plain common-sense, that ,the fundamental source of their existence is in danger from ignorance, i cynical exploitation, selfish interests, lack of policy, plain stupidity and slackness of heart. He is Mr G. Goddard Watts, and his pamphlet, "An Agricultural Policy for Britain," ought, if it did not! happen to be a damning reflection j on much official policy for the past| 20 years, to be an official pamphlet.,