Page:Henry Stephens Salt - A Plea for Vegetarianism and Other Essays.pdf/113



are many signs that what has very properly been called the “Great Food Question” will soon be recognised as a subject of immediate and paramount importance. The surface of party politics may be agitated by the fortunes of this or that legislative proposal, but the question which will chiefly occupy the minds of thoughtful men is how a sufficient food supply is to be provided for the increasing millions of the nation, and how we are to meet the social crisis which seems to be impending at no distant date, owing to the terrible destitution of the lower classes. Many are the suggestions constantly being put forward for the solution of this great national problem. but most of them are sadly inadequate and insufficient. Emigration is the favourite remedy of a certain class of economists and politicians, but, apart from the objections to the injustice of this scheme, which would enforce an unwelcome exile on large masses of Englishmen, there seems to be no certainty that it would really improve the condition of those who remain