Looking to the future, the only thing that I can say with any certainty about the wages question is that it needs very careful watching.  Let us be sure first of our principle, that the first charge on land, as on any other industry, should be a reasonable standard of living for the workers.  Then let us be sure of the fact that there is over a very large part of England and Wales no certain prospect of an improvement in the condition of the labourer compared with conditions ten years ago.  The dangers to be feared are that in the present lamentable weakness of the men’s unions large sections of farmers may break away from the recommendations of their leaders; and that if depression continues and war savings become depleted farmers will tend to push wages down in self-preservation.  These things must be watched.  If the general condition of agriculture improves without a corresponding improvement in the workers’ condition, or if conditions get worse and the brunt of the burden is transferred to the labourer, we ought to be prepared to advocate a return to the old Wages Boards or the adoption of a Trade Board system.  It must, I think, be a cardinal point of our Liberal faith that though it is better to leave industrial questions to be adjusted as much as possible by the parties concerned in the industry, the State must be ready to step in in any case in which the workers have not developed the power by their own combination to secure reasonable conditions and prospects.  It is to the prospects that I now turn.

ACCESS TO THE LAND

I mean by this that there should be as many chances as possible for men and women who have an inclination for country pursuits to take up cultivation of the soil; the freest opportunity for experiment in making a living out of the land; and good chances for those who have started on the land ladder to rise to the top of it.

The three things which stand in the way are:—­

(i) The cost of building and equipment;

(ii) The practice under which the cultivator provides all the movable capital;

(iii) The handicap on free use of land imposed upon its owners by the compensation clauses of the Agriculture Act.

These obstacles do real harm, in the first place, because a very large proportion of farms in this country are the wrong size:  too large for a man to work with his hands, and too much for him to work with his head, as Sir Thomas Middleton has well said.  Figures show quite conclusively that whether you take production per acre or production per man, the farm of from 100 to 150 acres is economically the worst-sized unit.  Probably more than half of our farms lie between 70 and 100 acres.  We should get far more out of the land if all were either below 80—­so that a man and his family could manage them—­or above 180, so that there would be a chance of applying to production the most scientific methods and up-to-date machinery.