Conservation of natural resources; Country life; Earth (Planet); Natural resources; Nature
My reader must not infer that we have arrived at a permanent
agriculture, although we begin now to see the importance of a permanent
land occupancy. Probably we have not yet evolved a satisfying husbandry
that will maintain itself century by century, without loss and without
the ransacking of the ends of the earth for fertilizer materials to make
good our deficiencies. All the more is it important that the problem be
elevated into the realm of statesmanship and of morals. Neither must he
infer that the resources of the earth are to be locked up beyond contact
and use (for the contact and use will be morally regulated). But no
system of brilliant exploitation, and no accidental scratching of the
surface of the earth, and no easy appropriation of stored materials can
suffice us in the good days to come. City, country, this class and that
class, all fall and merge before the common necessity.
It is often said that the farmer is our financial mainstay; so in the
good process of time will he be a moral mainstay, for ultimately finance
and social morals must coincide.
The gifts are to be used for service and for satisfaction, and not for
wealth. Very great wealth introduces too many intermediaries, too great
indirectness, too much that is extrinsic, too frequent hindrances and
superficialities. It builds a wall about the man, and too often does he
receive his impressions of the needs of the world from satellites and
sycophants. It is significant that great wealth, if it contributes much
to social service, usually accomplishes the result by endowing others to
work. The gift of the products of the earth was "for meat": nothing was
said about riches.
Yet the very appropriation or use of natural resources may be the means
of directing the mind of the people back to the native situations. We
have the opportunity to make the forthcoming development of
water-power, for example, such an agency for wholesome training.
Whenever we can appropriate without despoliation or loss, or without a
damaging monopoly, we tie the people to the backgrounds.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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