THE COUNTRY HOUSE. 299 



sportsman, or a scholar, indifferent to every- 

 thing outside of his library, park, or preserve. 

 It is the farmer who is always on the spot, 

 who is always to be found sitting on the 

 school management committee, or sitting on 

 the rural, or the district, or the county 

 council. He has the letting of the cottages 

 as well as the employing of labour, and it is 

 he who is generally the implacable foe of all 

 reform in education or sanitation, of a larger 

 freedom for labourers, or the restoration of 

 the land to the people. 



Educated men, with a passionate love of their 

 country, desiring to develop all its resources, 

 human as well as material, can do, and some 

 are doing, splendid work to help the un- 

 educated classes to voice their wants, or to 

 express them on paper regardless of the 

 stubborn opposition of the farming class. Such 

 men are a delight to meet, and I have found 

 them working as isolated units helping the 

 formation of small-holding societies in Somer- 

 setshire, agricultural co-operative societies in 

 Norfolk, land and home leagues in Wiltshire, 

 tenants' defence leagues in Yorkshire ; and I 

 have known personally two large landowners 

 who have issued month by month leaflets 



