Page 433 - clra62_0019-(GIPE)

THE PRESE~ ECONOMIC CONDITIONS AND OUTLOOK 4 2 5
largely on tte prosperity Qf residents who derived an
incomt from foreign. investments; but prosperity of
this sort was not desirable for a, great state. The
II form" of economic development is thus regarded as
important, and there is ~uch, it is assumed, which is
unsatisfactory in ours. To this whole conception I
demur. Economic conditions like those which have
come to exist in England display themselves when
the time comes, and it is best to let the community
adapt itself to the changes in its own way. That
modifications may be introduced by legislation for
political reasons is, no doubt, theoretically admissible;
but practically the limits of any such political action
must be circumscribed if a nation is to possess real
economic independence.
How important a natural development is we can
see, as regards the primary industries themselves,
agriculture and mining. Surely no one supposes for a
moment that a population of 42,000,000 in the United
Kingdom could be supported by its own agriculture or
can derive from that agriculture what it wants for its
miscellaneous industries. To do so there should be
12,000,000 acres under wheat, J double the acreage that
has ever been so cultivated; with a similar increase, as
compared with the present, of barley, oats, and other
crops; along with an enormous increase of cattle, sheep
and pigs. The change in our agriculture, to make us
self-supporting as regards food, is accordingly incon-
ceivable. Even sowe should still not be self-supporting
in other respects as regards agricultural products. We
should still be wanting in wool unless our sheep were
multiplied three or four times or more; while of course
we should remain as dependent as ever for cotton, jute,
silk, sugar, and other agricultural products, which the
Udited Kingdom is not adapted to produce. Sub-
s'tantially, then, l)ur agriculture must have taken the
1 Tne average yield per acre !>f wheat would~f course diminish
with the increase o( area, and thls allows (or three quarters per acre
as against an average o( 3t for many years.