1 36 A NEW AGRICULTURAL POLICY 



glittering in the sun, and beyond, the shadowy 

 form of the Welsh hills ; and it is here small 

 ownership has been carried out to an extent 

 rare in the annals of rural England. In 1841 

 the population was 707; in 191 1 it was 359. 

 When I visited the village in 191 2, though 

 the population had dwindled to one-half, the 

 cottages were not only legally overcrowded, 

 but, according to the Medical Officer of Health 

 for the County, " grossly and immorally over- 

 crowded." Thirty-three of the sixty cottages 

 inspected that year were occupied by their 

 owners. In one cottage three boys and one 

 girl slept in one room, while the mother and 

 three children slept in the other. In the bed- 

 room of another cottage slept two youths aged 

 sixteen and nineteen, and two girls aged fourteen 

 and nineteen. And it should be remembered 

 that most of these bedrooms were so small that 

 the cubic space allowed for each person was 

 often far less than that permitted in a common 

 lodging-house. In one bedroom, with an area 

 of not more than 700 cubic feet, slept three 

 persons of two sexes, aged fifteen, twenty, and 

 twenty-one. In two very small bedrooms of a 

 capacity of 660 and 480 cubic feet respectively, 

 slept a mother and eight children. The Clerk 

 to this Council admitted that no systematic 

 inspection had been made of this grossly in- 

 sanitary village for at least seventeen years. 

 One can hardly have two more striking 



