THE RURAL EXODUS 75 



forward again, which would enable landowners 

 to obtain grants of public money in order to 

 build the necessary cottages on their estates. 

 As long however as the existing conditions 

 of our land system are allowed to continue, 

 nothing can be clearer than the responsibility 

 of those who possess the land of England to 

 see that their dependants are decently housed. 

 This duty cannot be lightly ignored by our 

 country landowners, whose aggregrate rent 

 amounts to some 37,000,000 a year for 

 England and Wales alone. It may be perfectly 

 true that cottages cannot be built to yield, say, 

 more than a bare 2| per cent, on the outlay, 

 but we must not forget that the cottage rents 

 are low simply because the wages are low. 

 There is a tacitly understood bargain between 

 employer and employed in the country 

 parishes " we pay you low wages and you 

 shall have cottages at a low rent." 



It would, however, be unjust to take for 

 granted that all the " vile and deplorable 

 dwellings " of the Housing Commissioners' 

 Report are the property of big landowners. 

 On the contrary, some of the worst of our rural 

 cottages belong to persons in far humbler walks 

 of life, whose scanty earnings are invested 

 in this type of property, and who suffer acutely 

 by the issue of official orders for extensive 



