THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1910. THE LAND FOR THE PEOPLE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9711, 5 February 1910, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1910. THE LAND FOR THE PEOPLE.

A striking article, showing how Britain might produce the £60,000,000 ! wDrth of eggs, poultry, butter, vegetables and cheese, which are imported into that country every year is contained in the current issue of the "Weekly Notebook," issued by the Small Ownership Parliamentary Committee, of which Sir Gilbert | Parker, M.P., is chairman. The arI tide says. —"We have everything in | our favour—soil, climate, ready markets, the best breed of cattle, pigs and poultry, everything but one —system. And for the want of that we have lost our chances. No, not ■ lost, we have literally thrown them away; and, in doing so, we have not even th« cold comfort offered by freetraders that we are getting the goods cheap. Prices go up, but it is the foreigner who reapsjhe benefit; it is we who pay. Nothing is impossible which is within our control. And the j

causes of our failure are within our .'control. An eminent German .(authority, writing on British agriculture asks:—" Why has not the British farmer been able to keep in his own hands the entire supply of those enhanced quantities of butter, eggs, poultry, fruit and vegetables which his markets require?" He finds the answer in two causes—«n the drawback that the farmers are mainly tenants instead of owners, and because alike in the production of his supplies and in his method of disposing of them, the British farmer has a less perfect system than that of his competitors. But these are causes which can be removed. Develop small ownership, to stimulate the energies of the farmer; organise agriculture, to obtain the fullest results of those energies. It is not impossible to do these things. Remove the causes of failure, and success will take his place."