136 CONCLUSION 



the workers in our towns. A feeling of re- 

 vulsion is growing among those whose fami- 

 lies have been industrial workers for three 

 or four generations. The unhealthy atmo- 

 sphere and mechanical existence in our great 

 cities are having the inevitable influence on 

 physique and constitution. A generation or 

 so may endure the unnatural strain with little 

 apparent ill-effect ; but the malignant evil 

 reacts on older stock, and, in a struggle for 

 survival, Nature asserts herself in an instinc- 

 tive longing for the normal life of the open 

 fields. 



It is not difficult to trace why the con- 

 struction of rural life has failed to meet the 

 demands of its own workers, and conse- 

 quently why at the present time the natural 

 desire of urban workers to return to the land 

 is quite incapable of being fulfilled. For cen* 

 turies the foundations of village life depended 

 on each village being self-supporting and self- 

 contained. Under the old communal system 

 the inhabitants of villages had better opportu- 

 nities of obtaining a direct interest in the soil, 

 either by a few roods of arable land on an open 

 field or by grazing rights for a cow on a 



