SEPTEMBER 339 



some towns. But what is the remedy ? I suggest that perhaps it 

 may be found in the re-creation of the extinct yeoman class, which 

 incidentally, at any rate to a large extent, should solve the labour 

 problem. If they have a stake of ownership in the land, men will 

 not leave it ; they care nothing for it at present, because they have 

 no interest in it beyond the interest of the hireling. By way of a 

 beginning — but this is only a suggestion that may have been made 

 before — why does not the Government empower any suitable autho- 

 rity, such as the County Councils or the Board of Agriculture, to 

 buy up the glebe lands at a fair valuation and resell them on easy 

 terms to suitable applicants, to be farmed as small holdings ? At 

 present, in most instances, these glebes are only a nuisance to the 

 clergy, of which they would well be rid. 



Time alone, however, can furnish the final answer to the ques- 

 tion, unless Sir William Crookes has found it in the high prices 

 that he prophesies— a point upon which lam more than doubtful.' 



September 17. — Last Thursday, the 15th, harvest being ended, 

 I left home to pay a visit to my friend Colonel Lome Stewart, the 

 Laird of Coll, an island in the Hebrides. They farm in Coll ; 

 also the island is in many ways interesting, especially because 

 of Dr. Johnson's connection with it. Therefore, with the reader's 

 leave, I propose to set down briefly whatever things impressed me 

 on my travels. It is curious to read Boswell's ' Journal of a Tour 

 to the Hebrides ' in 1773, and consider how the means of locomo- 

 tion have improved in the short space of a hundred and twenty 

 years. What, I wonder, would the Doctor have thought of 

 a train that left Euston at nine o'clock at night and delivered him 

 at Oban at eight-thirty on the following morning ? ' Sir,' one can 

 imagine hirin saying to the obsequious Bozzy as he assisted him to 

 alight from the 'sleeper,' 'this is not Travelling, it is Transportation^ 



But then, barely four generations ago not only were the 



' Those of my readers who may be interested in this- vital question of the 

 exodus of the rural population into the gre.Tt cities are referred to the paper 

 published as an Appendix to this book 



z 2 



