In "Riches and Poverty," 1905 edition, I wrote:—
"The United States failing, we still secured our imported wheat supplies in 1904 and 1905, but at an increased price. Canada failed, but those uncertain suppliers, India and Australia, came to the rescue. Argentina sent us more than ever before and Russia also came into the export market. But the facts as to America remind us that none of these suppliers can be relied upon indefinitely, and some of them are notoriously uncertain. Canada has done badly in 1904 and there will always be difficulties of climate to consider. Moreover, the United States will in future come into the market as a buyer and compete with us for the exports of North-West Canada and Argentina. The sum is that we cannot for the future depend upon dirt cheap wheat raised by scratch farming on virgin soil, and that, as a consequence, the price of wheat will rise. As with wheat, so, sooner or later, with many other foods. When it comes to putting more labour and manure, and less luck, into farming in new lands, then conditions will be equalized, prices of produce will rise, and the price of British land will rise also."
It is now (1910) only necessary to add that the price of wheat has moved thus:
THE RISE IN WHEAT
| British Wheat. s. d. | Foreign Wheat. s. d. | Indian and Colonial. s. d. | |
| 1894 (lowest on record) | 22 10 | 22 10 | 23 6 |
| 1904 | 28 4 | 30 5 | 29 7 |
| 1905 | 29 8 | 31 2 | 30 8 |
| 1906 | 28 3 | 30 1 | 30 3 |
| 1907 | 30 7 | 32 4 | 33 10 |
| 1908 | 32 0 | 36 0 | 36 1 |
| 1909 | 36 11 | 39 2 | 40 3 |
Merely as a commercial speculation, then, it would be well worth our while to invest £1,000,000,000 in buying up the United Kingdom. The land is now probably at bed-rock price, and we should come in, as the slang phrase goes, on the ground floor. The really dear land, that of the towns, we could pass by. We want to get our industries and our people out of the towns and with control of area we could do it. The State, as landlord from John o'Groats to Land's End, could afford to dispense with the acquisition of the tiny areas upon which the majority of our people are now crowded. Land nationalization, viewed in this way, presents no insuperable financial difficulties. On the contrary, it would put us in possession, at an absurdly low price, of the opportunity to recreate our social structure and the means to dispense with all taxation in the time to come. Under wise management the national acreage could soon be made to yield a revenue from farms, allotments, market gardens, houses, factories, forests, etc., of something over three pounds per acre on the average, for it would house the greater part of our people and produce a larger part of our food by intensive cultivation. If we wisely use our resources, our 77,000,000 can be made to produce, under methods of intensive cultivation and co-operation already in practice, if not enough food to feed our population, certainly a larger proportion of our supplies than at present.
Also worth consideration is the important matter of afforestation. There are now but some 3,000,000 acres of woods and plantations in this country, and many of these are badly managed, for forestry is almost an unknown art in the United Kingdom. Landowners do not understand it; their agents do not understand it. Yet its possibilities are enormous and might be realized within twenty to thirty years of the simple financial operation which I have suggested. There need be no acre of the 77,000,000 not useful or not beautiful. Millions of acres of land now termed waste may be clothed in verdure to yield a steady and certain income and make us largely independent of imported timber. There is no greater authority on this subject than Dr Schlich, and he gives it as his opinion, confirmed by thorough investigation of British and foreign conditions,[53] that five or six million acres could be brought under wood, thus producing the bulk of the timber we require. Every acre afforested would require about £2 worth of labour. After planting, each acre would need only about five days' labour a year, but that means 30,000,000 days of work. The timber grown and cut, there would be the transport, lumbering, and allied industries calling for labour. Dr Schlich estimates that 500,000 men, or say 2,500,000 people, would find employment through the afforestation of say six million acres, and the estimate is based upon solid foundations.
It may be asked, why do the present owners of "waste" land miss such an opportunity? The answer has several parts. Landowners are for the most part (1) ignorant of the subject, (2) unprovided with capital, (3) unwilling to wait. A business which does not begin to yield income for some 15 years is not for the average private landowner. But the people, who have waited so long for the right to tread their own soil, can wait these fifteen years and other fifteen if need be.
Given the overlordship of area, the establishment of a permanent Land and Housing Commission, the nationalization of the means of transport, the establishment of well endowed schools of agriculture and forestry, and a generation of well-born children, what possibilities open out before us!