SOME OTHER REMEDIES 249 



flowers in a cholera camp ; the Labour Party 

 has no foothold in the average village. 



When in the fulness of time some great 

 statesman comes forward armed with full 

 power and authority to demand a surrender 

 of their stewardship from those who have 

 misused their trust, great will be his oppor- 

 tunity and great his reward. Few can suppose 

 that a system so deeply embedded in our 

 history and traditions can be hastily uprooted, 

 but on the other hand few impartial students 

 of our rural conditions can avoid the con- 

 clusion that the day for palliatives is drawing 

 to a close, and that private control of land is 

 our Carthage to be destroyed. Public owner- 

 ship is, indeed, the only policy which will 

 finally and completely cleanse that Augean 

 stable, our present Land System, of the feudal 

 arrogance, privilege, intimidation, and selfish 

 greed which have shaped the cruel history of 

 rural England. So, for the time being, let 

 every opportunity be taken to extend the 

 principle of collective ownership, timidly put 

 forward in the Small Holdings Act, until the 

 broad and fertile acres of our country are 

 wholly used in the best interests of the nation 

 which owns them. 



