THE  GAIN  OF  AGRICULTURAL  REVIVAL  153

increased  production  has  no  necessary  force  which  can
stimulate  a  corresponding  increase  of  consumption.  It
might  therefore  not  improbably  happen  that  an  improvement ­
  of  English  agriculture  would  give  increased  employment ­
  upon  English  soil,  and  might  be  attended  by  a
reduced  employment  in  Denmark  or  elsewhere.  There
will  be  no  rise  of  aggregate  employment  in  the  larger
industrial  community  to  which  both  England  and  Denmark ­
  belong,  unless  it  can  be  shown  that  the  result  of
English  improvements  has  been  to  raise  the  aggregate
of  consumption  in  this  larger  community,  and  this  is  not
shown  by  proving  that  more  is  consumed  in  England
unless  it  can  also  be  proved  that  less  is  not  consumed
in  Denmark.
While  such  a  consideration  need  not  deter  us  from  any
measures  of  agricultural  improvement  in  England,  we  should
recognise  that  the  ever  closening  international  relations
will  prevent  us  from  holding  the  full  advantages  from  such
improvements,  unless  the  supreme  test  of  a  rise  in  the
level  of  consumption  over  the  whole  competing  area  is
satisfied.
§  20.  The  Gain  of  Agricultural  Revival  should
go  Chiefly  to  Labour.
The  second  point  is  this.  In  regarding  the  influence  of
schemes  of  agricultural  revival  upon  the  volume  of  employment, ­
  it  is  essential  that  the  chief  gain  of  such  revival  should
pass  to  wages  of  labour  and  not  to  profits  and  rents  of
the  landowning  and  large  capitalist  classes.  For  we  have
observed  that  whereas  increased  wages  will  for  the  most
part  be  “  consumed  ”  in  raising  the  standard  of  comfort
for  agricultural  workers,  increased  rents  and  profits  will  to