VILLAGE LIFE 115 



^laulden that we find the terms for acquiring 

 the land on an economic basis. 



Winterslow, however, provides us with 

 another aspect of the question which is of 

 primary importance. The depopulation of our 

 villages, the flight from rural life, which has 

 been the dominant feature of those apparently 

 working under agricultural conditions, has 

 been in the main due to the entire lack of 

 direct interest in the land that members of 

 rural communities have actually enjoyed. 

 Surrounded by agricultural land, working for 

 or trading with those engaged in agriculture, 

 accounted as devotees to the agricultural in- 

 dustry, the inhabitants of rural villages have 

 little share in the fortunes of the calling with 

 which they are so closely associated. A parcel 

 of wage-earners grouped together in hidden 

 corners of the world, sundry small tradespeople 

 to supply the few necessaries of life, a vigilant 

 usurer, the ubiquitous civil or council servants, 

 form the social structure of a rural village. 

 Competition is eliminated from life : oppor- 

 tunities for self-advancement never come, and 

 cannot come. A reward for better enterprise 

 or greater energy than one's neighbour is un- 



