STIRRINGS OF NEW LIFE. 167 



afraid they would get into trouble. (This witness was a J.P. 

 and a member of the County Council.) 



Another witness, a retired solicitor, was asked : 



Q. Do you know that there is any difficulty in getting them 

 (the cottagers) to come and give evidence to-night ? 



A. They are very much afraid ; I have again and again 

 talked to them, and they have said, " Don't say a word don't 

 tell." 



And Chipperfield the village under investigation is 

 an "open" village and only about twenty miles from 

 London ! 



The Duke of Northumberland distinguished himself in 

 the House of Lords over the debate on the Housing and 

 Town Planning Act of 1909 by saying that " the provision 

 of cottages is not an urgent matter, and it is much more 

 important that owners should be safeguarded in the pos- 

 session of their property." Verily a peerless ducal utter- 

 ance ! 



All this went to prove to the most observant students 

 of rural life, that it was no use passing Acts of Parliament 

 at Westminster, if the people living in country villages were 

 either left ignorant of their existence, or had not the 

 courage to get them carried out. Those who lived close 

 to the labourer and understood the fear that dominated 

 his life realised that without some kind of industrial or- 

 ganisation, Acts of Parliament to give him a better time 

 were futile pieces of parchment. 



To begin with, the method of approaching a labourer, 

 of informing him of the law and of giving him the oppor- 

 tunity to conform to it, is altogether a too complicated 

 and chilling process. Since the Great War the public have 

 had a regular schooling in Forms ; but before the War a 

 Form to be filled up was something that was viewed with 

 suspicion by untutored minds. (Even landlords seemed 

 to find a difficulty in filling up Form IV.) The fear of a 

 trap haunted them, and when unlettered men had to appear 

 before an unsympathetic land-agent, backed by a hostile 

 County Council, the labourer had a poor chance of communi- 

 cating his desires. 



