If you look at a map of England on which each constituency has been painted with the distinctive colour of the party that represents it in Parliament, you make the surprising discovery that almost the whole map has been painted blue.
There are patches of red, but the broad acres on which the food is grown that supports the urban millions, are traditional Tory country.
Now that is a loyalty which I hope no Conservative leader will ever take for granted. I certainly shan't.
A party that has always had deep roots in the countryside must continue to earn that loyalty.
And however much farmers may grumble at us when we are in office, the fact remains that we have served British agriculture better than a wholly urban party, which puts cheap food above the need for a balanced economy, can ever do.
In the years before 1970, a Labour government brought many British farmers to the verge of bankruptcy.
In the past year livestock producers and dairy farmers have been no better treated.
For the first time we are actually beginning to see a decline not only in output but in provision for the future. [end p1]
They say we should be thankful for small mercies, and the latest Price Review may just prevent a bad situation from becoming even worse. I rather doubt it.
But I cannot see it as any kind of a sound foundation for that sustained expansion of production that we need—and that can only be based on adequate returns and confidence in the future.
Consumer food subsidies are no answer to the real problem. They conceal reality and blur the issues.
We know that our farmers and farm workers can do the job if they are given the right encouragement. The industry's record since the war has been little short of amazing.
In fact it is no exaggeration to say that if British manufacturing industry had increased its productivity at anything like the rate of British agriculture, we should be a very prosperous country indeed with no balance of payments problem at all.
To produce more food from our own fertile acres is more than an economic necessity. It is a moral obligation as well. This is one field in which self-interest and altruism go hand in hand. We need to reduce our imports for balance of payments reasons. But when millions of people in the under-developed countries are suffering from malnutrition or facing starvation, we have an absolute duty to reduce our own demands on the food resources of the outside world.
A well balanced economy means, too, a well balanced society. The interdependence of town and countryside is a real thing, and the balance has to be kept right. Britain's countryside is not just something for townspeople to build on and picnic in. It is an area in which other people live and work and cherish their own values and way of life. It must flourish if Britain is to flourish.
A well balanced society. How easy it is to say, how apparently difficult to achieve. Yet only in a well balanced society, in which no institution or group of people is too large or too powerful, can everyone feel happy and secure. Excessive power, selfishly or irresponsibly used by any sectional interest, threatens the freedom and prosperity of everyone. [end p2]
A proper balance of power, which includes a proper balance of property and influence, is the aim of true statesmanship.
And the first essential is a proper balance between the power of the State and the freedom and aspirations of the individual citizen. Let me repeat something I wrote recently in a newspaper article.
It is not the business of politicians to try to please everyone. That is impossible. It is their business to try to do justice to everyone. And this involves doing justice to the strong, the able, the enterprising and the thrifty as well as to the weak and unfortunate. No more than justice: but certainly no less.
How else can a struggling country survive?
Wealth has to be created, as well as shared. And it is not created by the State, by public corporations or by welfare services. It is created by the vision, the ideas, the hard work and the savings—yes, the capital—of men and women in industry, in commerce and on the land.
Is this something that Mr. Healey, Mr. Benn and Mr. Foot cannot see? If they can't see it, because of their ideological blinkers, they are foolish and dangerous bigots. If they can see it, but are determined nevertheless to upset the balance of society and destroy the springs of enterprise, then they are vindictive as well as dangerous.
Anyone with common sense can see the dangers, and it is to the common sense of the great majority of British people that we must appeal if we are to unite the country in time for it to save itself.
Common sense tells us that we cannot go on for long consuming more than we produce, or being paid more in real terms for producing no more. [end p3]
It tells us, too, that the process of readjustment cannot be entirely painless, in the short run at least, for everyone.
There is no salvation in the encroaching power of the State, stultifying initiative and expensively undertaking unnecessary responsibilities.
Let us aim not just to halt the advance, but to reverse it. We need less State interference, fewer bureaucratic interventions, not more.
If we could restore common sense, as well as justice, to our taxation and welfare systems—to say nothing of education—what a sigh of relief there would be! What a load of resentments lifted!
And we will do it. That I promise you. Give us your support and we will win.
Earlier this week a distinguished political commentator concluded an article about me with these words: ‘The art of political survival is to deal with the facts as they are and not to dream dreams’.
Well, I know what he meant. I think I'm a practical politician, and I try to get my facts right.
But never to dream dreams? What a depressing thought! That is the fate of bureaucrats, not the inspiration of statesmen.
Did Disraeli never dream dreams? Nor Churchill?
I say again, give us your support.
We will deal with ‘the facts as they are’ all right.
But we will make some dreams come true as well.