ABSTRACT
The scale and scope of British agriculture and the future of rural life in general were thus key issues in the Conservatives’ intra-party debates of the early twentieth century. That few co-operatives had emerged in Britain and that they had been relatively unsuccessful, in contrast to the experience of Germany, Denmark and other nations, was attributed in part to divisions within British agriculture, but it was also blamed on a lack of support from the State and British financial institutions. In the major speech of the tariff campaign proper, Joseph Chamberlain began a tale of economic woe by stating that ‘Agriculture, as the greatest of all trades and industries of this country, has been practically destroyed’. The Tariff Commission surveyed a broad range of farming opinion, providing Conservatives not only with a clear picture of farming attitudes to tariffs but also with the background for a much more ambitious agricultural policy.
