THE 1BEIGATION AGE. 131 



same unemployed level. To augment the 330,000,000 indebtedness 

 of the counties, boroughs, and parishes of England and Wales is crim- 

 inal. A wider spread of misery becomes inevitable, by adding greater 

 numbers to the million idle hands now stretched out appealingly for 

 work. 



What is our position as a nation in such straits in the midst of 

 peace y One of dependence for supplies of food for three months out 

 twelve in the year, for which a million factory, mine and shop toilers 

 are incessantly engaged manufacturing and exporting to get that im- 

 ported food of foreign nations, of which we might produce the larger 

 part. 



A coalition of nations would dictate what terms they choose, or 

 stop our food supplies in case of war. Then England would see how 

 untrue it had been to the unemployed would see that the 11,000,000 

 acres of waste-land would have yielded health, wealth and honor to 

 the million unemployed, and yielded also an annual revenue of 11,- 

 000,000 rental, and lessened the rates for pauper and pauper official 

 maintenance, by which the middle and poorer classes are bowed down. 

 There are no paupers in Holland who are able to work: they may not 

 beg, but may work on the state-farms at profitable industries, and 

 may acquire land of the state when their toil has brought them a com 

 petence to hire or buy it. 



Back to the land ! now relapsing into wild moorland and tangled 

 brake. Back to the deer-forests! once farm-land, now let at ^ 

 pd. per acre for shooting. Back to the England that is becoming a 

 bleak desert in places, once "the home of happy yeomen and sturdy 

 cottagers. This simple inexpensive plan would give new life to the 

 nation. 



On from ten to forty-acre farms, a quarter of a million houses 

 would need building. Bridges and roads made: seed- trees planted: 

 implements, furniture and some of the simple luxuries of modern life 

 supplied. Schools, libraries, gas- and water- works: team and rail- 

 roads created. None need be idle then in fact should not be allowed 

 to be, while work had to be done to produce food and wealth. One 

 hundred and sixty million pounds now spent for food abroad might- 

 some of it be spent at home. Cottage and garden farming pay. 

 The farm laborer produces twenty-five times more than he consumes; 

 the super-flux would aid to make England contented and prosperous, 

 and free many from the peril of sure starvation should war stop our 

 foreign food supplies, or trade grow worse in England than it is at 

 this moment. 



A new crusade against waste-land should be preached, and none 

 refused work who applied and were willing to cultivate the land of 

 Britain and Ireland. 



