BRITISH AGRICULTURE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21560, 3 August 1933, Page 13

BRITISH AGRICULTURE

Sir, —It seems surprisifig to me that so much could be written on the subject of British agricultural conditions by such expert publicists as Mr. Bloodworth and Mr. Vaile without eliciting the facts. The basic fundamental cause of the decline of British agriculture is the monopoly of land which systematically deprives the British agricultural worker of the product of his toil. A "lifelong student of this subject, the late Edward Carpenter, an authority whom Mr. Bloodworth will probably accept, showed in his Fabian tract, "The Village and the Landlord, 1 " that in what he described as a typical "English agricultural district with a population of a hundred people producing an annual income from agricultural pursuits of £6OOO, no less a sum than £3125, more than half, was collected by landowners in the form of rent. A century of trades unionism, to which Mr. Bloodworth pins his faith, has not so much as touched this basic fault in the British social system, and I suggest to Mr. Bloodworth that if trades unionism is capable of improving social conditions by raising wages it will at the_ same time checkmate any increase in the purchasing power of the wages by raising the rent of land. For the benefit of Mr. Vaile, let me point out that John Stuart Mill, that acknowledged great authority, asserts that: "The greatest 'burthen on land' is the landlords." I agree with Mr. Vaile's dictum that "we should think in goods and not in money," but where do we get the goods? Will Mr. Vaile kindly explain how the British agricultural worker can possibly get possession ot the goods which are the purpose of his industry when they are systematically "drained away," as Mill describes it bv the private appropriation of economic rent? G. Henry.