Fallacy—politically and biologically! The worst thing that could happen to us after the war would be a sense of perfect security, in which to continue to neglect our agriculture and increase our towns. Does any man think that a momentary exhaustion of our enemy is going to prevent that huge and vigorous nation from becoming strong again? Does he believe that we can trust a League of Nations—a noble project, for which we must all work—to prevent war till we have seen it successful for at least a generation? Does he consider that our national physique will stand another fifty years of rampant industrialism without fresh country stocks to breed from? Does he suppose that the use of the air and the underparts of the sea is more than just beginning?
Politically, our independence in the matter of food is essential to good will between the nations. Biologically, more country life is essential to British health. The improvement of town and factory conditions may do something to arrest degeneration, but in my firm conviction it cannot hope to do enough in a land where towns have been allowed to absorb seven-ninths of the population, and—such crowded, grimy towns!
Even from the economic point of view it will be far cheaper to restore the countryside and re-establish agriculture on a paying basis than to demolish and rebuild our towns till they become health resorts. And behind it all there is this: Are we satisfied with the trend of our modern civilisation? Are we easy in our consciences? Have not machines, and the demands of industry run away with our sense of proportion? Grant for a moment that this age marks the highest water so far of British advance. Are we content with that high-water mark? In health, happiness, taste, beauty, we are surely far from the ideal. I do not say that restoration of the land will work a miracle; but I do say that nothing we can do will benefit us so potently as the redress of balance between town and country life.
We are at the parting of the ways. The war has brought us realisation and opportunity. We can close our eyes again and drift, or we can move forward under the star of a new ideal. The principle which alone preserves the sanity of nations is the principle of balance. Not even the most enraged defender of our present condition will dare maintain that we have followed out that principle. The scales are loaded in favour of the towns, till they almost touch earth; unless our eyes are cleared to see that, unless our will is moved to set it right, we shall bump the ground before another two decades have slipped away, and in the mud shall stay, an invitation to any trampling heel.
I have tried to indicate general measures and considerations vital to the resettlement of the land, conscious that some of my readers will have forgotten more than I know, and that what could be said would fill volumes. But the thought which, of all others, I have wished to convey is this: Without vision we perish. Without apprehension of danger and ardour for salvation in the great body of this people there is no hope of anything save a momentary spurt, which will die away, and leave us plodding down the hill. There are two essentials. The farmer—and that means every cultivator of the land—must have faith in the vital importance of his work and in the possibility of success; the townsman must see and believe that the future of the country, and with it his own prosperity, is involved in the revival of our agriculture and bound up with our independence of oversea supply. Without that vision and belief in the townsman the farmer will never regain faith, and without that faith of the farmer agriculture will not revive.
Statesmen may contrive, reformers plan, farmers struggle on, but if there be not conviction in the body politic, it will be no use.
Resettlement of the land, and independence of outside food supply, is the only hope of welfare and safety for this country. Fervently believing that, I have set down these poor words.
1918.