CHAPTER V. 



TOWARDS NATIONALISATION 

 § 1. Sentimental Value. 



IT is not possible to discuss satisfactorily any policy 

 for rural districts without taking into account 

 the three interests concerned — the interests of the 

 landowner, the tenant farmer, and the labourer. Under 

 the existing land system, with feudalism still a reality, 

 the three interests are closely connected. By feudalism 

 is meant the possession on the part of the landowner of 

 peculiar privileges, power, and position, in return for 

 which he is supposed to render certain services, such 

 as providing cottages at uneconomic rents, assisting in 

 paternal fashion the poorer tenants, and generally spending 

 money in ways that provide a considerable amount of local 

 employment. Feudalism is, no doubt, on the decline, and 

 must disappear. But if we attempt merely to hasten this 

 disappearance without having anything except individualistic 

 enterprise to take its place, it is certain that there will be, at 

 any rate for a time, no little suffering in rural districts. A 

 constructive policy must accompany the policy of destruction. 

 Any constructive policy must satisfy two conditions. 

 First, it must improve the position and increase the number 

 of the rural population. More money, and not less, must 

 therefore be spent in rural districts. Mere taxation, to be 

 spent on increased armaments and the like, will not suffice. 

 Secondly, it must lead on to Nationalisation. We do not 

 want, for its own sake, the break-up of large estates and their 

 sale to tenants. The fewer the owners the easier to nation- 

 ami control.* 



* There are at present only 5,000 large landowners in England 

 owning over 1,000 acres ; and these 5,000 own nearly half the land of 

 England between them. The whole of the soil is owned by about 

 1,000,000 persons altogether. In both Germany and France, on the 

 other hand, the ownership is more equally divided among about 

 5,000,000 persons. 



