The Tyranny of Usury_, p. 13.

[709] _Ibid._ pp. 13, 14.

[710] Jowett, _The Socialist and the City_, pp. 45, 46.

[711] See p. 281 ff.

[712] _Independent Labour Party Report, Annual Conference_, 1907, p.
50.

CHAPTER XVIII

SOCIALISM AND AGRICULTURE

In one of his books Mr. Blatchford gives prominence to the following
statement contained in Prince Kropotkin's book, "Fields, Factories,
and Workshops": "If the soil of the United Kingdom were cultivated
only as it was thirty-five years ago, 24,000,000 people could live on
home-grown food. If the cultivable soil of the United Kingdom were
cultivated as the soil is cultivated on the average in Belgium, the
United Kingdom would have food for at least 37,000,000 inhabitants. If
the population of this country came to be doubled, all that would be
required for producing food for 80,000,000 inhabitants would be to
cultivate the soil as it is now cultivated in the best farms of this
country, in Lombardy, and in Flanders."

Commenting on this statement Mr. Blatchford says: "Why, indeed, should
we not be able to raise 29,000,000 quarters of wheat? We have plenty
of land. Other European countries can produce, and do produce, their
own food. Take the example of Belgium. In Belgium the people produce
their own food. Yet their soil is no better than ours, and their
country is more densely populated, the figures being: Great Britain
per square mile, 378 persons; Belgium per square mile, 544 persons.
Suppose wheat will cost us _2s._ a quarter more to grow it than to buy
it. On the 23,000,000 quarters we now import we should be saving
_2,000,000l._ a year. Is that a very high price to pay for security
against defeat by starvation in time of war?"[713]

Many Socialists very wisely demand that everything possible should be
done to bring about a revival of our agriculture. They point to the
agricultural prosperity of Belgium, France, and Germany, and they
would be quite ready to sanction the re-introduction of Protection, as
will be seen in Chapter XXI. Nevertheless they absolutely and
unconditionally oppose the creation of a class of peasant proprietors,
although the intensive agriculture of France, Belgium, and Germany is
founded upon the system of peasant proprietorship, and although
general experience, both in Europe and on other continents, has proved
the great superiority of peasant proprietors over large farmers in
intensive culture. "No Socialist desires to see t