ECONOMIC  CRITICISM

15  1
tural  produce  upon  the  market  at  the  profitable  rates,
would  exercise  a  certain  curative  influence  upon  the
malady  of  unemployment.  By  affording  increased  employment ­
  on  the  land  they  would  check  the  constant
flow  of  rural  labour  to  the  towns,  and  would  render  far
more  effective  than  before  the  other  remedies  which  might
be  applied  to  the  direct  relief  of  unemployment  in  the
towns.  But  if  these  schemes  of  agricultural  business  are
to  succeed  it  is  most  important  that  they  should  be  planned
with  a  single  view  to  the  improvement  of  agriculture,
and  not  directly  with  the  object  of  “making  employment
on  the  land.”  This  latter  effect  should  be  left  to  flow
naturally  from  the  attainment  of  the  former.  The  best
available  labour  should  be  put  upon  the  best  available
land,  with  freedom  of  cultivation  and  a  sufficiency  of
capital.  A  scheme  like  that  of  Corporate  Tenancy  involving ­
  as  its  foundation  some  mutual  aid  and  confidence,
would  form  a  basis  of  co-operation  in  the  use  of  machinery,
dairy  appliances,  storehouses,  which  would  develop  naturally ­
  certain  economies  of  transport  and  marketing,  securing
for  the  producers  a  large  proportion  of  the  profits  which
at  present  pass  to  collectors,  carriers,  salesmen,  and  other
grades  of  middlemen.  Last  but  not  least  such  groups
of  small  holders  could  by  the  development  of  Agricultural
Credit  Banks,  secure  for  themselves  that  command  of
capital  and  flexibility  of  business  outlay  which  is  so
essential  to  successful  competition  under  the  terms  of
modern  industry.
ig.  Economic  Criticism.  National  versus
International  Policy.
In  forming  any  general  estimate  of  these  proposals  as