THE CALL FOR RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 7 



prove an effective remedy. Scolding and threatening will not give 

 the insufficiently equipped farmer more capital. And depriving 

 him of his livelihood, such as it is, would only saddle the country 

 with a new and difficult problem. No more will threatened depriva- 

 tion put more nous into the farmer's head. The complaint now 

 justly made is not that the landlord deliberately selects incapable 

 farmers as his tenants, but that capable farmers are too scarce to 

 man the farms with, that the mass of farmers are incapable. Then, 

 if the Government proceeds with its threat to " nationalise " — for 

 that is what it comes to — not indeed the soil, as the land-nationalisers 

 demand, but, which is a great deal more risky and may lead to a 

 greatly magnified " Richmond Park " — the calling of agriculture, 

 where is it to take good farmers from to replace the bad farmers 

 displaced ? You often enough, as the proverb has it, exchange your 

 dull-eyed horse for a blind one. Calling the man a bailiff instead of 

 a tenant will not make him a better farmer. And directing the 

 entire farming machinery of the country from Whitehall Place is a 

 sheer impossibility. The proper remedies for the evil complained 

 of are Credit Facilities and Education. 



In respect of " country life " for the millions of dwellers on the 

 land of what I have classed as the third order — those who toil — the 

 effect of our old manner of regulating matters has proved still more 

 hurtful. There is no need to dwell afresh on the miseries, and, 

 what is worse, the hopelessness, of the rural labourer's existence as 

 it has been hitherto. In the Sussex woman's words, it has been a 

 " being, not a living." Those miseries have been described by many 

 pens, not least graphically by Mr. Jesse Collings, who had himself 

 passed through the trying ordeal in his early days. But even his 

 dismal tale does not really paint things at their worst. For his 

 people had the grit in them, despite all hindrances, to raise themselves 

 to a better position, which fate does not fall to the lot of the majority 

 of the poor people referred to. Homeless, landless, prospectless, 

 despised, treated often enough with kindness, but with a kindness 

 that was markedly condescending and patronising and that empha- 

 sised the party wall separating class from class — there he stood, 

 there he toiled, inefficiently, it might be, because hopelessly and 

 without the reserve of comfort of any kind, homelife, or whatever it 

 might be, allotted to him — which reserve alone, human nature being 

 such as it is, will call forth really good work. 



Of late, indeed, a truly striking change has come over our rural 

 scene. The War, with its privations and needs, has made its effect 

 felt. The feeding of the nation was in jeopardy. Every effort must 



