56 PROBLEMS OF VILLAGE LIFE 



What is the result of this business-like 

 attitude towards the farming industry ? 

 With a less fertile soil, a similar wage bill, 

 lower prices for produce, a worse climate 

 and Free Trade in foodstuffs, agriculture in 

 Denmark is infinitely more prosperous than 

 it is in England. 



Over the greater part of England, farm- 

 houses are situated at a considerable distance 

 from one another, and this simple fact is 

 perhaps at the root of the peculiarities of 

 character which most observers agree in 

 attributing to the English farmer. His aim 

 is to be master in his own house, to manage 

 his affairs without interference from outside, 

 and to let no one know how he is doing it. 

 He is suspicious of others, and takes a pride 

 in maintaining towards all enquirers a close 

 and baffling reticence. Only on one subject 

 is he communicative, and that is the decay of 

 agriculture and the unjust advantages enjoyed 

 by the townsman, whose profits he imagines 

 to be on a vastly higher scale than his own. 

 He is individualistic to the core a laudator 

 temporis acti, who sighs for the " good old 

 times " when wheat sold at 60/- a quarter 

 and labourers lived semi-bestial lives on 8/- 

 a week. The District Council and the Board 

 of Guardians provide the sphere in which he 



