amendment of the Factory and Workshop Acts. Further, it will 
institute a searching inquiry into the organisation and conduct of the 
cotton industry, and into the best methods of improving them, with a 
view to restoring the industry to prosperity by a comprehensive and 
well-considered scheme of reconstruction. 
AGRICULTURE AND RURAL LIFE 
No industry has suffered more from the indifference of the 
Government to the need for a systematic plan of economic development 
than has that of agriculture. The result of that neglect is seen in a 
serious underproduction of food, in the sacrifice of large areas to the 
sport and the amenities of a small class which amuses itself in the country 
but draws its money from the towns, in the water-logged or otherwise 
neglected condition of great tracts of land, in the increasing exodus of 
population from the countryside, and in the existence in many rural 
districts of standards of housing, health and wages which are 
inconsistent with the economic efficiency of the nation and which are 
a grave menace to its social welfare. 
Agriculture, nevertheless, is still among the greatest of British 
industries. It must be rescued from the policy of doles alternating 
with neglect which has hitherto been inflicted on it. The aim of 
the Labour Party is to foster the fullest and most effective use of 
the land as the necessary condition of rural prosperity, and 
simultaneously to raise the standard of life of the rural worker as the 
necessary condition of effective agriculture. But good farming is 
impossible without security for the farmer, without adequate facilities 
for credit on reasonable terms, and without a guarantee that the cream 
of the industry will not be skimmed by the middleman, or its profits 
swept away by fluctuations in prices which, as things are to-day, no 
foresight can anticipate. Nor can a tolerable standard of prosperity and 
pomfort be made available for rural workers unless steps are taken to 
bring within their reach the amenities of civilisation which have hitherte 
been inaccessible to them. The economic problem of agriculture, and the 
social problem of rural life, must, therefore, be attacked simultaneously. 
Labour's Agricultural Policy 
The foundations of the Labour Party’s policy, which are to be 
found fully stated in Labour's Policy on Agriculture, are the 
emancipation of agricultural land from the hampering restrictions of 
private ownership, the establishment of equitable and humane conditions 
of life and employment for all rural workers, and the creation of the 
largest possible measure of security against the catastrophic changes 
in market conditions which are the curse of the industry to-day. With 
a view to encouraging good husbandry, to establishing security of 
tenure at fair rents for efficient farmers, and to finding the capital 
for development which landlords to-day are unable to provide, the 
State should acquire the ownership of the land on equitable terms. At 
the same time, with the advice and assistance of bodies representing 
the experience of practical agriculturists—the representative character