BRITISH AGRICULTURE.

Ohinemuri Gazette, Volume XXIX, Issue 3999, 27 November 1918, Page 3

BRITISH AGRICULTURE.

AFTER-WAR DEVELOPMENT,

The vital necessity of more development work in the field of British agriculture was stressed by Mr Lloyd George in a recent speech at Manchester. Dealing with after-war problems generally, he said :—Take the most important of national industries, agriculture. Agriculture in the past has been overlooked in this country. It.has been neglected,

with the result that we have been dependent vary largely upon lands across the seas for our food. We have realised during war the perils of this position.. We have been depen.dent on others, not because Great Britain cannot produce food, but because we never realised the importance of home production. It is in the highest interests of the community that the land in this country should be cultivated to its fullest capacity. I doubt whether there is a civilised country in the whole world where agriculture has received less attention at the hands of the State. There has been a good deal of talk of small holdings and. allotments, and there has been a good deal of rapid scratching on the surface, often by men who know very little about it, but the real problem of cultivating land to its utmost capacity has never heen tackled. In the future we must see that this matter receives the necessary attention and encouragement. The cultivation of the land is the basis of national strength and prosperity, and the cultivation of the land includes the minerals under theland. Here we have made an extravagant and wasteful use of these rich deposits. By a conversion of those resources to a large extent into electric power we could not merely extend existing industries, but new industries could be established under healthier conditions all over the land and there would be a saving of the cost of production, and *" increased wages could be much bc'.ter borne without increased cost to the consumer or impairing our chances of competing with neutral markets.