be two-thirds less when the population is two-thirds more. The depopulation of country districts is not accidental. It is intentional and deliberate. This was confessed with cynical frankness by Lord Lansdowne in the debate on last year's Land Bill.
"What is it that makes ownership of land practicable ? It is surely not to be recommended as an investment. Most of the large proprietors, if they now had in their pockets the sums which have been spent from time to time in the improvement of their estates, would be rich beyond the dreams of avarice. Surely what gives reality to ownership, what makes it a valuable and precious thing to many people, is that we have hitherto associated with it the power of guiding the destinies of the estate, of superintending its development and improvement, and, above all things, the right to select the persons to be associated with the proprietor in the cultivation of the soil."—(Hear, hear.[1])
It will be a hard task to restore the people to the soil. Many of them, alas ! have lost the taste for that first and most blessed form of human labour, the cultivation of the fruitful earth. But give them a little bit of their own—though but a garden—to till, and the taste will revive. The tie between man and the soil is as old as man himself. The renewal of it in some shape or other is the only way to solve the problems of Work and No-Work. Something must be done : Liberal and Tory, Socialist and Individualist, Jingo and Peace man, Free Trader and Tariff Reformer, big
- ↑ 18th August 1907.—"Some three months ago I was speaking to about 100 men in a village, and could not arouse any enthusiasm or create any interest. Disheartened, I put to them the question: 'Do you want any land? they replied, 'No.' I thought I had found an agricultural Utopia, where all desires had been satisfied, but the appearance of the men belied this. The meeting closed, and I remained behind talking with one or two. Presently about ten of the men came back, and one approached and said, 'Look 'ere, mister, we do want some land.' 'Well,' I replied, 'why didn't you say so when I asked you?' 'Oh,' said the fellow, 'didn't you know that he was there?' There is a touch of comedy in this may be, but also tragedy."—Hubert Beaumont (Secretary of the Central Small Holdings Society), Daily News, 15th June 1908.
