case, the examination for admission should be such as would give the best boys from the leading grammar and public schools a fair chance of success in competing against University men. All successful candidates should enter as second-class clerks, with a salary ranging from (say) £100 to £400, and should, after a strict probation, be eligible for promotion by selection to the 400 first-class clerkships and to the highest "staff" positions in the Service.

If, on the one hand, the Civil. Service is to maintain the high reputation which it has so well earned, and is to cope successfully with its ever-growing responsibilities; and if, on the other hand, the right of the public to have its work paid for at something like the market rate of wages is to be respected, it is of the utmost importance that a scheme such as I have suggested in this article should take the place of the present faulty crganization. The present

tendency is to have a body of about 5,000 absurdly overpaid minor officials of Board Schcol attainments; a middle class (1,000 strong) drawn from these when their originally defective educational acquirements have been still further blunted by years of devotion to routine duties; and a small body of 400 superior officials, drawn from the Universities, many of whom experience shows to be merely scholars and not men of affairs, but upon whom would practically fall the enormous responsibility of properly managing all the State Departments. If this scheme be allowed to ripen and become fully established, it is easy to see how disastrous would be the results. Fortunately, it has only been in operation for about seven years, so that the mischief is as yet only commencing, and there is time to put matters right if prompt measures are taken. The Playfair Commission consisted entirely of officials; and their scheme failed, so far as it did fail, by reason of the business element being absent from some of their detailed proposals and from the method in which these were carried out. The Ridley Commission included, on the contrary, no officials and only one ex-official; and their scheme failed because they were unable to get at the whole truth as regards Service requirements. A small Commission consisting partly of experienced officials and partly of shrewd men of business would probably be more successful. And the Government should be urged to appoint such a Commission, to consider in what respects the Orders in Council which at present regulate the Service should be revised, with a view to putting the Service on a really business-like and satisfactory footing.

A CIVIL SERVANT.

Τ'

THE CRITIC IN THE FARMYARD

HE interesting articles under the title of "The Foreigner in the Farmyard" have been collected and republished, with some additions, in a volume which is dedicated to "all who are interested in the prosperity in the United Kingdom of the Queen of Industries.” That category properly includes the whole of the forty million inhabitants of these islands, though the vast majority-being as Carlyle described them-do not in the least degree realise it. As a matter of fact, the public at large appears to care very little indeed for the prosperity or adversity of Agriculture. This at any rate is a fair conclusion to draw from the small amount of attention which the Press gives to agricultural affairs, unless such "a visitation of god" as that which has afflicted unfortunate Essex induces them to devote to it for a few days about a tenth of the space which they would give a sensational robbery. This attitude of indifference among the leaders of public opinion extends to periodical literature, and it is therefore a cause for appreciation when THE NEW REVIEW affords the opportunity for something like a general review of the agricultural situation by a writer so able and friendly as Mr. Ernest Williams.

It is because the publication of these articles and of this book by one who-in connexion with Agriculture-may be termed without offence a "new" writer, is an event of interest and importance to all who are concerned in the subject with which they deal that I am glad to have an opportunity of making a few remarks which appear to me not wholly unnecessary with regard to them.

46

Mr. Disraeli once said of Lord Palmerston that he made a speech "not so much in support of, as about, the Reform Bill." It would be unfair to apply the saying to Mr. Williams, who has certainly written in support of Agriculture, but it may also be said that he has written a good deal "about" it. If one may be allowed the remark, there is a great deal about the Foreigner and a little about the Farmyard in his book. He has indicated without much ambiguity his attitude towards British Agriculture, but his views about the British Farmers are not very clear. It is somewhat uncertain whether he attributes their

present plight mainly to their fault or to their misfortune. It is probably fair to assume that he considers it to be due partly to both causes. In that case it is hardly necessary to observe that the causes, though they may, of course, exist side by side, are in some degree mutually destructive; in other words, the more their condition is due to their fault the less it must be due to their misfortune, and the more it is due to their misfortune the less it must be due to their fault.

That, in the opinion of Mr. Williams, the British farmer is much at fault is very apparent. One or two extracts will exemplify this:

"The apathy of the British Farmer is especially maddening to those of us who advocate State Assistance for Agriculture. We are constantly having his stupidity thrown in our teeth when we advocate needful mcasures of Protection; and the uphill struggle against Cobdenite prejudice is not lightened by having to sit silent under the retort, 'What is the good of trying to help men who will not help themselves?' We may-and we should allow something for the hopelessness engendered by the transference of taxation from the successful foreign importer to the unsuccessful Home Producer; but having made this allowance there still remains enough gratuitous and obstinate inertia to spoil the temper of the most benignant among the well-wishers to English Agriculture" (p. 65 *).

In another place he speaks of "conservative individualism of the most unprofitable and insensate kind" among dairy farmers, and he takes passages from one or two speeches delivered at a certain meeting of the Farmers' Club to support this view. It should be incidentally remarked, however, that the statement of "a practical gentleman from Yorkshire," that "co-operative production" is, and is likely to be, "a failure," is misapprehended by Mr. Williams. As I happened to be the originator of the discussion on the occasion referred to, I may be allowed to say that the phrase "co-operative production" was used in a definite sense as applying to actual farming. It is a simple fact that co-operative farming has been frequently tried and has almost invariably failed, and Mr. Williams makes no attempt to show anything to the contrary.

The most clearly-defined count in the indictment against the intelligence of the British farmer is that which is fairly set forth in the following passage (p. 48):—

*The references are to the book (London: Heinemann).

"The butter-maker has a by-product-the separated milk-wherewith he may feed his young stock and rear pigs at a minimum of expense. This is a point of economy which too often glances aside from the hard head of the British farmer. He prefers good, easy man-to sell his milk whole, whereby he gets no cream for butter, nor milk for cheese, nor separated milk for calves and pigs; but a big bill to pay for foodstuffs. He also gets a price for his milk which leaves a very unsatisfactory margin of profit, and in consequence he fills the air at the market ordinary with vehement remarks concerning hard times. No one doubts that hard times are there; assuredly I do not. Nor (as my readers are aware) do I desire to cast the whole burden upon the farmer. Still, it is impossible to shut one's eyes to the truth that, so far as dairy farmers are concerned, their devotion to milk is certainly the cause of much of the trouble. Butter (to say nothing of dairy-fed bacon) is a much surer way of salvation."

Again (p. 72):-"The English farmer . . . . is in bondage to milk: not realising that consumers used butter as well as milk, and that the butter supply of England, which is enriching the rest of the world, might, if the manufacture and distribution were properly conducted, be a source of revenue to himself."

On the question of fact the English farmer is bound, with all due contrition, to plead guilty. He has notoriously supplied his countrymen with more and more milk to drink, and he has also unquestionably sold milk in this way which he would otherwise have made into butter or cheese. But it may perhaps surprise his critics to know that he has not done this from mere cussedness, nor from crass stupidity, nor even from simple laziness. He has many faults, no doubt, but he is really not quite such a fool as he looks to those who observe him through spectacles of imperfect information. The explanation of his preferring milk-selling to either butter-making or cheese-making is deplorably crude, being the plain fact that, as a rule, it pays better. It does not require much technical knowledge to grasp this, for the proof lies in a very elementary arithmetical exercise. It takes from two and a half to three gallons of average milk to make one pound of butter, and it takes one gallon of milk to make one pound of cheese. An average of Is. Id. to Is. 2d. per pound for butter is a moderate estimate for the year. This gives a return of, say, 41d. per gallon for the milk-the Irish farmers obtain less than 4d. by their creameries. Cheese at its best makes say, 6d. to 7d. per pound, or a return of 6d. to 7d. per gallon

for milk, but the price is uncertain, and of course it is only possible to make cheese in the summer months. But notwithstanding the present surplus of town milk, owing to a supply temporarily exceeding demand - which may be expected soon to readjust itself there are very few milk-selling farmers who cannot rely upon an average for the year of 7d. to 8d. per gallon. Under normal conditions, if a farmer is within the milk-supply radius of a large town, it may be taken as an axiom that he will make more for his milk by disposing of it as it is than by turning it into butter or cheese. But even if this were not so the criticism seems particularly inconsistent. Milk is the one article in which the English farmer has succeeded in keeping out the foreigner. Yet he is deliberately advised to lessen his supply, with the result, of course (as it is hardly to be supposed that the demand will diminish), that foreign milk must come in to supply the deficiency. If he were to relinquish the milk trade, and allow the foreigner to "capture" it, what a howl would be raised against his stupidity!

And this brings us to what is really the main ground of complaint which Mr. Williams takes up against the British farmer. His argument is largely based on the pleasant assumption that the farmer systematically and perversely does those things which he ought not to do and leaves undone those things which he ought to do. He persists in selling milk-when he can—which he ought not to do, while the things which he ought to do are many and magnificent. I deduce from Mr. Williams that farmers to begin with ought to grow 8,000,000 acres of wheat instead of the miserable 1,700,000 which they now grow, though it must be admitted that this obligation is not pressed unless a duty is placed on foreign wheat. Whether the farmer "ought" to grow all the oats and barley and produce all the meat consumed in this country is not quite clear, though it seems to be suggested; but it is certainly imputed to him for unrighteousness that he does not monopolise the supply of butter, cheese, poultry, eggs, fruit, vegetables, and hops to his own countrymen. Mr. Williams appears to have some doubts as to whether the whole of the corn, meat, dairy produce, &c., now imported could be produced at home, for he observes:-" If British agriculture were free of foreign competition, and as flourishing as it is now desperate, it is more than likely, particularly having regard to its manufacturing interests, that England would require a certain amount of imported food."

I desire to refrain, as far as possible, from statistical detail, but