I 4 THE AGRICULTURAL CLUB. 



a Member of Parliament ; Mr. Acland would preach the 

 gospel of co-operation, or introduce felicitous " chaff " into 

 the solid grain of discussion ; Lord Bledisloe would advocate 

 pigs and potatoes and insist on a settled agricultural 

 policy ; Mr. Higdon would expatiate with halting eloquence 

 on the blessings of Land Nationalisation and the right of 

 the people to access to the land, while Mr. Hewitt would 

 stipulate that the public right of access should not 

 extend to his small holding ; Mr. Rea would contribute wise 

 and sympathetic counsel ; Mr. Dallas would enunciate 

 revolutionary principles in terms of sweet reasonableness ; 

 Mr. Padwick would interpolate brief and pointed observa- 

 tions ; Mr. Wadman would anathematise the Wages Board 

 and all its works amid the callous applause of its members ; 

 Mr. Lovell, " oop from Zummerzet," would tell a plain unvar- 

 nished tale in the soft West country speech ; Mr. Colin Camp- 

 bell, seldom interposing in discussion, would good-humouredly 

 encourage the expression of views which he regarded as 

 pernicious ; Mr. Denton Woodhead would demolish an argu- 

 ment with neatness and dispatch ; Mr. Orwin would illumin- 

 ate the debates with the dry light of economics ; Mr. Haman 

 Porter would insist on the love of the labourer for the land 

 and the iniquity of the tied cottage ; and Mr. Walter 

 Smith would state the Labour policy so persuasively that 



"Even the ranks of Tuscany 

 Could scarce forbear to cheer." 



All these, and many more, memory recalls, and above all, 

 and pervading all, is the atmosphere of comradeship, of 

 common interest, and of mutual esteem and consideration. 

 The unwritten watchword of the discussion, was frankness, 

 the guiding impulse was to face the facts of any question 

 open-eyed and fearlessly. It would be too much to claim 

 that the Club always lived up to its ideals. In all discus- 

 sions of questions on which men profoundly differ there 

 is a tendency either to exaggeration or reservation. The 

 partisans of a particular opinion are prone to overstate their 

 case to a friendly audience and to understate it to a hostile 

 one. In the discussions at the Agricultural Club, however. 



