THE ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER 569 



kept in the rural districts ; it desires that they should be attracted 

 to the towns, there to supply cheap labor. If that is so, here, 

 again, nothing more can be said, except that in the opinion of 

 many this is the shortest road to national disaster. 



I urge with all earnestness that the matter is one which needs 

 impartial investigation. Educational theories may be pushed too 

 far, especially when the theorists and the teachers are townsfolk 

 unacquainted with the needs and conditions of the land, and 

 quite careless or 'ignorant of the ultimate issues of its impoverish- 

 ment and depopulation. 



To recapitulate, then, as one who has made an earnest and 

 prolonged study of these questions, on behalf of the thousands 

 who think as I do, I ask six things of the government, not 

 only in the interests of rural England, but of Great Britain as 

 a whole : 



1. That it will extend the provisions of the Housing of the 

 Working Classes Act in some such fashion as is suggested above. 



2. That it will place a minimum sum of half a million at the 

 disposal of the Board of Agriculture to be, as regards one moiety, 

 loaned out by the said board to co-operative credit societies work- 

 ing under its control or supervision, in order to enable them to 

 start, or to extend their operations. As regards the other moiety, 

 to be employed for the advance of moneys upon such terms as 

 may be found safe and reasonable, to be used in the establishment 

 in suitable places of co-operative milk and butter factories. 



3. That in view of the very serious state of affairs revealed by 

 the report of the Royal Commission on. Local Taxation, and the 

 ever-increasing burden which is being heaped on real property 

 that grows daily less able to bear it, the government will at once 

 introduce legislation to enforce the conclusions of the said report. 

 This might be done by charging sums spent on account of the 

 nation to the nation at large, instead of leaving them to be borne 

 to the extent of, I believe, over 82 per cent by the owners and 

 occupiers of real property. 



4. That it will deal with the questions, among others, of the 

 abolition of copyhold and of the cheapening of land transfer. 



