374 LAND REFORM 



say how much ?) to that stock of national wealth so 

 small a portion of which has fallen to his share." 



In many parts of rural England this description still 

 holds good so far as the regular labourers who cannot 

 leave the land are concerned. The following letter 

 received this year (1905) from the wife of a clergy- 

 man in a country parish states : " The wages here are 

 I2s. and 13s. a week, or 15s. to shepherds (who never 

 get a Sunday free at all), rent is, a week ; but when a 

 man and wife and seven or eight children have to live 

 on that, they are literally so underfed that they have 

 neither strength nor thought for anything but how to 

 be fed or covered. What they need is not kindness 

 merely, or charity, but a living wage ; and that they 

 have not got in these parts. The agricultural labour- 

 ers are such splendid fellows when they have any 

 chance, but all who can are going away ; and if pro- 

 tection of some sort does not come soon to rural 

 England, there will be nothing and no one left to pro- 

 tect. It is scandalous that home interests which affect 

 the very root of the well-being of the nation should be 

 so persistently ignored."^ 



At the same time we are assured by a certain class 

 of economists, generally well-to-do men, that all is 

 well. Exports and imports are growing greater : the 

 aggregate wealth has been increasing by leaps and 

 bounds, till, according to the best authority, the na- 

 tion's capital has reached the almost incredible sum of 



^ In the many visits made to rural districts for political and other 

 purposes I have been continually struck with the good work done by the 

 wives and daughters of parish clergymen. They give their womanly 

 sympathy, and often material aid out of their scanty means, to poor 

 parishioners in times of family troubles, while the games, entertainments, 

 etc., which they promote form the only relief to the monotony and the 

 uneventful character of village life. 



