186 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 



prima facie evidence was adduced for Mr. John Burns to 

 order an immediate enquiry. This time twenty men came 

 forward in the crowded little village schoolroom to bear wit- 

 ness as to the lack of cottages, and how, under notice 

 to quit, they had searched in vain for a house. The tragedy 

 of one man, with seven children down with whooping cough, 

 under notice to quit an overcrowded cottage, was startlingly 

 revealed, and the story of how youths and girls were driven 

 to the towns was unfolded. 



But all that the Enquiry produced for these people was 

 a revengeful retaliation on the part of the recalcitrant 

 councillors. 



What happened was an eviction as brutal as any in the 

 annals of English country life. The County Council, one of 

 the three jaws of the three-mouthed Cerberus, promptly took 

 its revenge. It snapped at the two ringleaders and threw 

 them bodily out upon the roadside. In a heap on the deep 

 snow under a leaden sky were piled the household goods of 

 Robert Grimshaw and Alfred Fortune. In a group collected 

 the villagers, standing silent and sullen under the fresh 

 indignity dealt out to them. 



Some very extraordinary evidence was brought out at 

 the Enquiry. Lord Lansdowne's agent actually said he had 

 never known that there was any demand for cottages at 

 Foxham. The Surveyor of the district " had never heard 

 of any demand for cottages." The Chairman of the Rural 

 District Council, which is held at the centre of the pig indus- 

 try, had " never heard of a want of housing accommodation 

 in that parish." 



The men who took a leading part in the Enquiry were 

 driven out of the neighbourhood. No wonder the village 

 labourer felt that the odds were too much for him in a fight 

 for justice. In his hazard of life he had to play with those 

 who had loaded dice. Even when he won, the cost of victory 

 was too heavy for him to pay. 



" I do not think there is much difference of opinion as to the 

 main facts," said Lord Lansdowne, in 1913, on the subject of 

 housing. " There is throughout a great part of this country a 

 very serious shortage of housing accommodation in our villages. 



