xxii LAND REFORM 



to sink into the ranks of pauperism. There are thou- 

 sands of persons who are not only benevolent, but 

 actively beneficent, who spend time and money un- 

 grudgingly in trying to alleviate the misery that exists. 

 I would ask these persons and others when next they 

 journey through the country to note how small is the 

 quantity of tillage they see ; that there is grass, grass, 

 almost everywhere, the land carrying cattle instead of 

 men. While noting this let them recall the poverty 

 they deplore and the condition of slum life they may 

 have witnessed. They may then safely associate 

 those two conditions (of the land and of the people) as 

 veritable cause and effect. 



The divorce of the people from the land was the 

 original cause of our Poor Law system. The same 

 cause has been operating since the sixteenth century, 

 and is at work with similar effect at the present time. 

 The "casual" and the "vagrant" of to-day are in- 

 directly {through the effect of the rural exodus) the 

 counterparts of the " valiant beggar " and the " sturdy 

 vagabond " of old. The perplexed authorities in those 

 days adopted branding, ear-cropping, and hanging as 

 a cure for the evil. Our Boards of Guardians in 

 similar straits are crying out for fresh methods of 

 dealing with these so-called "pests of society." 



But the only effective way of dealing with vagrancy 

 and able-bodied pauperism is to remove the cause of 

 which they are the outcome. Prompt legislation for 

 the revival of agriculture with the consequent re- 

 peopling oi the land is the only hopeful way out 

 of these evils. In this direction also I believe lies, to 

 a large extent, the solution of those social problems 

 in our midst — of overcrowding, provision for old age, 



