ACCESS TO THE LAND AS OWNERS 413 



which the peasant became part of the land and the land part of 

 him. Domestic handicrafts cannot be revived ; the old gradation 

 of ranks cannot be exactly replaced ; the leisureliness and tran- 

 quillity have passed away for ever in this more crowded and bustling 

 age. To a greater extent than before, laws of competitive supply 

 and demand must dominate labour and regulate rates of wages. 

 But ladders of thrift and industry may, with the co-operation of the 

 State, be planted in every village by which agricultural labourers 

 might still climb upwards, gain a permanent stake in the rural 

 community, and escape that exclusive dependence on employment 

 and cash earnings which renders their livelihood and homes at 

 present insecure. But the bottom rung of the ladder must be placed 

 low enough. The opportunity of buying a freehold cottage and 

 garden appeals to every man, if the annual instalments do not exceed 

 the annual rent current in the neighbourhood. The well-intentioned 

 and useful restrictions imposed by landlords will probably be at once 

 ignored. Lodgers will be taken in, possibly to the detriment of the 

 cottage-owner ; pigs and poultry will be kept which may be a 

 nuisance to neighbours. Such matters must be left to right them- 

 selves. No one minds the smell of his own pigs or the noise of his 

 own poultry. Allotments, brought within easy reach and moderately 

 rented, should be universally provided, unless the undeveloped land 

 duty raises their rent to a prohibitive height, and drives field gardens 

 to a distance which renders them comparatively useless. No 

 scheme is universally applicable to every locality. Small arable 

 holdings or even farms may be suitable in some districts. In other 

 parts of the country bits of grass land may be of greater value. 

 For the addition of the requisite pasture to arable holdings, a 

 common, carefully stinted, and regulated by the small owners them- 

 selves, as in the case of the Duke of Bedford's scheme at Maulden, 

 may prove a useful expedient. In every village such a common, if 

 properly managed, would be a boon by increasing the local supply of 

 milk, which is scarcer in villages than in towns. 



On economic lines such as these, village life might in time be 

 reconstructed, and intellectually placed on a higher level than the 

 old. To each inhabitant would be offered the prospect of a careei 

 full of modest possibilities and varied interests. In the home and 

 on the soil belonging to their parents, children might gain that love 

 of country pursuits which is rarely acquired in later years, and th 

 practical handiness in all details of the management of land without 



