446 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 



and maintain shall be let at that figure. Perhaps the 

 raising of the assessment of cottages to their real and 

 not their rental value would push people in the right 

 direction ; but rural rating is already such a wilderness 

 of anomalies that one small reform might make very 

 little difference. The farmer is fundamentally over- 

 rated because, while practising a primitive industry, he 

 is made to live up to an urban standard in such 

 matters as roads, education, sanitation, etc. ; and the 

 rough and ready methods that have been adopted of 

 giving him relief only take off some of the burden 

 without removing the injustice. Still he lives, and is 

 managing in the United Kingdom to-day to do justice 

 to the land and to get a good deal of food out of it ; 

 for all his various disabilities and difficulties, we can 

 see only one panacea " More light." Whatever the 

 future may have in store for our agriculture and we 

 look forward with a confidence founded on the changes 

 of the last twenty years we can still be proud of its 

 state to-day, for it need fear no comparisons whether 

 we regard it as a living art or as a mother of men. 



