relation between agricultural economy and the cost of food.

4. The changes (_a_) in the standard and cost of living, and (_b_) in
the economy, solvency and stability of rural communities.

5. The economic interdependence of the agricultural producer and the
urban consumer, and the extent and incidence of middle profits in the
distribution of agricultural produce.

6. The action taken by different Governments to assist the development
and secure the stability of the agricultural classes, and the
possibilities and the dangers of such action, with special reference to
the delimitation of the respective spheres of State aid and voluntary
effort.

7. How far agricultural and rural employment can relieve the problems of
city unemployment, and assist the work of social reclamation.

Some may think that I am assigning to two bodies work which could be as
well done by one. While all proposals for multiplying organisations in
the field of social service should be critically examined, there are
strong reasons in this case for the course I suggest. The two bodies,
while working to a common end, will differ essentially in their scope
and method. The propagandist agency will be executive and
administrative, and while its operations would have suggestive value to
the country social worker everywhere, it would be concerned directly
only with the United States. Furthermore, it need not necessarily have
any lengthened existence as a national propagandist agency. It would be
founded mainly to introduce that method into American agricultural
economy which I have tried to show lies at the root of rural progress.
As soon as the soundness of the general scheme had been demonstrated in
any State, the central body would promote an organisation to take over
the work within that State. The State organisation would, in its turn,
soon be able to devolve its propagandist work upon a federation of the
business associations which it had been the means of establishing. That
is the contemplated evolution of my first proposal--the early delegation
of the functions of the national to the State propagandist agency, which
would further devolve the work upon bodies of farmers organised
primarily for economic purposes, but with the ulterior aim of social
advancement.

The Country Life Institute would be on a wholly different footing. Its
researches, if only to subserve the Country Life movement in the United
States, would have to range over the civili