88 SHOOTING THE HARE 



this way the value of residential property is directly 

 impaired, fewer and fewer capitalists care to invest in 

 land which they can no longer deal with as their 

 own property, and less and less money is brought into 

 the rural districts. What wonder, then, that our 

 farmers crowd the bankruptcy courts, or retire with the 

 wreck of their capital from the attempt to make a 

 living out of their holdings, while the labourer throngs 

 into the towns to aid in the congestion of the labour 

 market and to swell the ranks of the unemployed ! 

 No allotments or village councils will attach him to 

 the land. What he wants is abundance of suitable em- 

 ployment at good wages, with a comfortable home to 

 lie down in at night ; and how can these desiderata be 

 arrived at unless everything is done to attract capital 

 mto the rural districts, so that the riches accumulated 

 in towns may be spent in the improvement and beauti- 

 fying of the country estates, giving abundance of work 

 to all the labourers obtainable, and diffusing plenty 

 around ? 



With Acts of Parliament like the Ground Game 

 Act, and the tendency of the Legislature to multi- 

 ply such restrictions upon the use and enjoyment of 

 property, it is no wonder that most capitalists fight 

 shy of land, and less money is laid out for the benefit 

 of the labourer and village resident than was the case 



