Arizona republican., 1917-03-29
A Re- Sorn England

While engaged in measures for tightening the
blockade of the Central Powers Great Britain is
solving the problem of terrifying itself against the
submarine blockade of its shores. To that Pre-
mier Lloyd George is bringing the same energy as
that with which he solved the munitions problem.
He making England less of playground for class
and more agricultural country The deer and the
pneasants being banshed from the great parks
OF great landed and the pillow is stirring
idle soil centuries. He is turning the turf
side down just he has reversed many established
institutions An Engishman's home may be his castle
but his castle and its surroundings longer his
to do with as he pleases in OF countrys
need. He will never again exercise the same control
of his holdings.
Of the new policy the London Observer says:
To see a complex and sophisticated society brought
down again primitive bedrock alto nearly CEN
fury of cushioned deuson is a spectacle of war as
remarkable as any battlefront and perhaps more
So far we had not forgotten the Lords Prayer
repeated with less and less inward understand
ing, for above all the vast majority of US in this
country took daily bread for granted There was
a general idea that it in ships; and by easy
but superior arrangements making the best of both
worlds would always come on of cheapness
and safety unknown to other European nations sunk
in economic superstition. The submerged tenth in
and rural labour in its cottages were
sacrificed social complacency political fana-
ticsn of the rest Our fertile land the original home
Of scientific farming lay derelict
retrograding more and more from tth the essential
higher stage of sound human civilization, to grass
pasture, the lower That of the extraordinary
spectacles of the nineteenth century Our agricultural
population dwindled away in country as well fitted
any globe for the maintenance and increase
of strong thriving human breed.
We were divorced than any other society
whatever from the right of the brown old earth
and from fundamental realities Of national ex
istence. At last came the war, first with very
slow dawning of the truth and then, to most men,
after than two with mental reVelallOn
like an opening OF the heavens and earth. We found
that subsistence was neither cheap safe We found
we had been fed almost equally on foreign products
and home lies. We realized that the case was one
grave severity and that the agricultural
decline in this country ought to have been
permitted and must never be allowed to recur; That
nothing could deadly peril in the war nor
guarantee position afterwards but drastic
inconvenience enormous effort prodigous expense,
and revolutionary revision of our whole national
policy Created by free imports and home neglect the
FOOLS paradise of Britain has been shattered about
For the culminative folly of two generations
must pay dearly now in money and trouble, but
would have paid in tire end with national
death were the lesson well learned. In a word,
what discovered in the primeyal fact that
the food question is at the bottom Of every other
question big and little; that everything else is built
the food supply that here as elsewhere, the best
use our land at home must be the foundation
of society; and that this necessity must henceforth
first in war and after the war, no matter what
else comes second
The Observer goes back to the early free traders
Adam Smith, Nautilus, Golden and Sir Robert Peel
They contemplated a reduction OF agricultural
production On the contrary they expected, though we
cannot see how stimulated production. They ex-
pectod to decrease rents and not prices and not to
throw a single of cultivation.
Further says the Observer:
But the real view of national society held by the
fathers of Free Trade forgotten AS often hap
pens, the discriminating teachings of the old
masters were exaggerated side TO the point
of caricature by the later disciples We know what
opened during the long Of drift before Arma-
geddon Our destiny decided by movements and
chances far from our shores. We were like traveller
who adventures smooth UNEMPLOYED river and is
swept unsupported cataract For years affairs
seemed to be flowing smoothly according to prophecy
seventies, and agricultural disaster reached its RUM
Gus worst in the nineties. In 1912 the island
nearly self-sufficng when Peel described cult
walton climbing to the top of every hill
When harvests bountiful produced nine
tenths of the wheat required when harvests were
splendid soil brought forth all but TWEEN
tieth part of total consumption. We were in
vulnerable in The situation changed until we
grew at home only a fifth part of needs and
were utterly dependent shipping for the rest
that is, for our very life. No wonder the Germans
fixed their hopes and fix them STILL the sub
Ynarin