What is happening in the world today? We have been living through an epoch in which wars, tyrannies and privations seem to have reached their peak... - Vera Stanley Alder

Up till now the people have been largely defeated by the language in which economics, science, law and finance are habitually veiled; — the methods by means of which these aspects of the life of the community are managed is a mystery to the ‘man in the street’. Therefore change for them means the unknown, full of terrors and the possibility of loss — because their minds have not been trained logically to visualise coming developments as the natural processes of evolution.

Can we grasp that the only requirement in order that this may be so is organization, a combined world organization founded upon the spiritual principle of sharing and cooperation; and that this would change the world from the state it is now in to a comparative Heaven?

The first concern of the Agricultural Section would be the serious one of preventing soil erosion through large-scale cropping of the land and through the cutting down of trees. It may be that such world-wide ravages will be stopped only just in time. At the present date of writing (1900) the menace is grave indeed. It will readily be seen that the cure of this type of devastation and the rehabilitation of great tracts of land can only be achieved under the most rigid authority and over a long period. By the time of which we are speaking a good beginning will have been made. The newly formed deserts and dustbowls of America and Africa will have been gradually reduced in size by afforestation and by the introduction of water systems around their borders.