i6o LAND REFORM 



at the present time are an assessment, so to speak, of 

 the national damage accruing from the creation and 

 retention of our land system and a gauge of the price 

 we are still paying for it. 



For centuries the rural population was prosperous 

 and well to do, and if they had been justly treated they 

 would have remained happy and contented. They pos- 

 sessed to the full those qualities of thrift, frugality, and 

 industry, which are always allied to cultivating owner- 

 ship — qualities which writers so often declare are want- 

 ing in the labouring classes of to-day. 



The decayed market towns and grass-grown villages 

 of the present time were in former times teeming with 

 people. Some of our small villages were important 

 places. The number and large size of the country 

 churches, the homesteads and substantial yeomen 

 farmhouses which still remain, testify to the vigorous 

 character of country life in England. The village 

 sports and games, which were no doubt rough, and 

 sometimes rather cruel, possessed, nevertheless, the 

 great merit that the people themselves took part in 

 them. The modern notion of paying people to play 

 for one had not arisen. The men and women were 

 of fine physique, healthy and strong, with whom in 

 this respect our town-bred population cannot vie. 



In a village of " Merrie England" in those days 

 things went suently and well till the fatal time arrived 

 when the manorial lord bes:an to inclose the commons 

 and to take other proceedings with regard to the land. 

 Then the despairing villagers were despoiled, their 

 efforts to save themselves ignored or defeated, and 

 the decay of the parish set in. ^ 



^ A very interesting account of the rural economy which existed in 

 those times is given in Fitzherbert's " Bokc of Husbandrie." The English 

 Text Society (1882). Reprinted from the edition 1554. Edited by the 

 Rev. W. W. Skcat. 



