DECEMBER 457 



power, only too often believe that salvation lies in attacking what 

 they are taught to consider the interests of the farmer, the parson 

 and the squire, rather than in insisting that the ancient industry 

 of British agriculture, by which their forefathers have lived for 

 centuries, should at least receive fair treatment in its struggle for 

 existence. They forget — speaking broadly— that all those who 

 live by the land must swim or sink together, that if the farmer 

 falls the landlord will fall, and if the landlord falls the labourer 

 must follow him, since under our system and customs, if one 

 cannot wring a living from the soil neither can the others, so 

 that it becomes almost valueless to all. The worth of land 

 depends fundamentally upon the value of what it will produce, 

 and if, from any given causes, its cultivation ceases to be re- 

 munerative, then all who took a return from the fields, whether in 

 the shape of rent or crops or wages, must go empty away. To 

 suppose if the landlord were abolished (which is impossible under 

 any scheme of tenure that I can conceive, since it can scarcely be 

 made unlawful for an individual, a corporation, or the State to own 

 and hire out land) that the others concerned would necessarily 

 flourish is a pure fallacy, as many a person has found out who 

 farms his estate, and thus becomes his own landlord. Putting 

 aside other questions that arise — capital is necessary, and profits 

 can scarcely be cut so fine. 



Well, these be great matters, which I suppose no words of mine 

 may move for good or ill. A still greater matter is the desertion 

 of the land by the labourer. To my mind, under present condi- 

 tions which make any considerable rise in wages impossible, that 

 problem can only be solved by giving to the peasant, through 

 State aid or otherwise, the opportunity of transforming himself into a 

 small landowner, should he desire to do so, and thus interesting 

 him permanently in the soil as one of its proprietors. But to own 

 acres is useless unless their produce can be disposed of at a living 

 profit, which nowadays, in many instances, at any rate in our 

 Eastern counties, is often difficult, if not impossible. Will steps 

 ever be taken sufficient to bring the people back upon the land ; and 



