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. 1 



September 17. Last Thursday, the i5th, 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 him 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 



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

 exodus of the rural population into the great cities are referred to the paper 

 published as an Appendix to this book 



Z 2 



