1 68 A NEW AGRICULTURAL POLICY 



men wore white flannels now with the artist's 

 son as in fellowship they danced the sword- 

 dance with graceful agility. Yes ; the jocund 

 youth of rural England meant to create a new 

 era for those who lived by the land. . . . 

 Down the lane where the overarching trees 

 formed a bower a new pattern was woven. 

 Narrow bands of white flannel now girdled the 

 pink and green of shepherdesses and milkmaids. 



Whilst penning the last pages of this book 

 the fate of the Agriculture Act blown hither by 

 Lords and Commons hung in the balance. It 

 would require the bracing wind which sweeps 

 over the wold to sweeten the decaying leaves 

 of this Act, and even then I doubt if they are 

 worth preserving, for they are mostly autumn 

 leaves. None of them, however, litter the 

 carriage drives of parks, and I doubt if farmers 

 will ever gather them up even in order to 

 fertilise the land. They will probably be 

 swept up into a heap and burnt. Let us, there- 

 fore, start afresh with something which has a 

 touch of spring in it. Glancing eastward to- 

 ward the Dawn the horizon looks Red. The 

 pious, conservative-minded Russian peasants 

 have driven the Russian noble from off his 

 vast estate, and have become themselves lord 

 of the soil, dividing the spoil between them, 

 setting at defiance, we are told, the famished 

 Bolshevik workers of the towns, and slaughter- 



