THE FINAL PHASE 161 



an important educational system has been built up ; 

 but the policy of providing'small holdings and labourers' 

 cottages has not, as a rule, been sufficiently actively 

 pressed to make our country-side attractive to the more 

 energetic young men and women of the labouring class, 

 and the migration to the towns and colonies has continued. 



Rural life was very different at the time of the begin- 

 ning of the war from what it had been forty years before. 

 In the agricultural catastrophe it was the 

 old-fashioned squires and farmers who dis- 

 appeared, and the men who took their place, 

 many of whom came from the towns to buy land from 

 the half-ruined landlords, have rarely been imbued with 

 the autocratic spirit of their predecessors. Education, 

 in all its aspects, had spread ; as a result there was 

 more tolerance. The same spirit animated the religious 

 world, although the Anglican parson was still inclined 

 to stand by the gentry, and continued to take social 

 precedence of the Nonconformist minister. Even the 

 farmers, though more inclined than squire and parson 

 to cling to the old point of view, were influenced by 

 the new spirit, whilst the new market-gardeners to 

 be found in almost all parts of England were eager 

 for new ideas and new methods. Moreover, many 

 manufactories were erected along the railway lines, and 

 men of all classes had come out from towns to settle 

 down in the country and influence its life. Amongst 

 the labourers there was still much poverty ; the houses 

 were often miserable, while in many districts small plots 

 of land were difficult to obtain. But although the men 

 were still, in old-fashioned neighbourhoods, often subject 

 to a personal control which they found extremely irksome 

 and often bitterly resented, there was little of the degra- 



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