INTRODUCTION xv 



lict or even half- cultivated, but should be made to 

 yield food to its full capacity. The people have a 

 natural right to claim the fulfilment of this condition, 

 and to call for such a system of cultivation as will 

 secure it. With these views I have endeavoured to 

 speak, not only to agriculturists, but to the general 

 public, and especially to the labouring classes, and to 

 point out that under the system proposed in this 

 volume it would be possible to increase largely, even 

 to double, the present produce of the soil, and, at the 

 same time, to provide a vast amount of good and con- 

 tinuous employment for the people. 



It may be suggested that there was no need for 

 dwelling at length, as in the following pages I have 

 done, on agrarian proceedings in past times. That 

 would be so were it not for the fact that the effects 

 of these proceedings are living forces with us at the 

 present day. It is impossible to judge rightly the 

 present condition of land tenure in England without 

 recalling the historic processes by which it was created 

 — processes by which the yeoman farmer was reduced 

 to the position of a dependent tenant, and the peasant 

 proprietor to that of a landless man. 



The history of the land question from the point of 

 view of the occupying owner — peasant and yeoman — 

 has never yet been written. Historians as a rule 

 deal mainly with the political events and national 

 occurrences of the times of which they write. Facts 

 with regard to the land may be duly recorded, but 

 their bearings on the life of the people are insuffi- 

 ciently dealt with, misapplied, or passed over alto- 

 gether. As an instance, take the so-called "peasant 

 revolts" which were ever recurring throughout succes- 



