RURAL ENGLAND OF TO-DAY 49 



There was a time when their possession of such 

 power was normal and inevitable. So long 

 as all their interests were centred in their own 

 neighbourhood, and the country house was 

 not a mere place of retreat after the London 

 season ; so long as they shared with the clergy 

 the monopoly of education ; so long as they 

 were the only possible administrators of justice, 

 the only possible legislators, the only possible 

 leaders in social life and opinion ; so long as 

 rural society was too little developed to dis- 

 pense with autocratic government ; so long was 

 it natural that they should control the destinies 

 of the countryside. But, in so far as these 

 conditions have ceased to exist, the powers 

 and privileges of the English landlords have 

 lost any justification they ever possessed. 

 Privilege, however, dies hard in the midst of 

 so conservative a people as the English, and 

 the chains of Feudalism are still riveted 

 firmly upon our rural districts. Even under a 

 Liberal Government, the administration of 

 the Small Holdings Act, the dispensing of 

 justice, the control of our Territorial battalions 

 have all been committed into the hands of the 

 landowning class, to an extent which makes 

 the country voter sometimes ask himself 

 whether there is really much difference between 

 one Government and another. The stream 



