284 AWAKENING OF ENGLAND. 



prevent our countryside being depleted of 

 wealth -producers. 



There are bye-laws and the lawyers to be 

 reckoned with. Bye-laws, however, can easily 

 be altered, but lawyers seem destined to be 

 with us always. I am not one of those who 

 join in the general outcry against the bye-laws. 

 Sane bye-laws are often the only protection 

 that country-folk have against the misdoings 

 of jerry-builders, but I do object to bye-laws 

 being gerrymandered by builders, or their 

 friends, who sit on rural district councils, 

 framing them hi their own interest. 



A workman, or a person possessing no 

 property, who is elected to sit on a district 

 council is likely to go there with cleaner hands 

 than those who handle property. But, un- 

 fortunately, such a person is often devoid of 

 any aesthetic sense. It is a depressing thought, 

 showing to what extent commercialism has 

 debased the finer sense of beauty in man, that 

 even the country cottager looks upon the 

 hideous suburban villa as a palace of delight, 

 and his own picturesque country cottage with 

 contempt as old-fashioned. Here it is that the 

 educated independent man with taste would 

 come in and play a great part in the revival 



