THE RURAL PROBLEM 55 



generations. But it can hardly be controverted that a 

 peasantry, if properly housed and fed, is physically stronger 

 than a town population under any conditions likely to be 

 universal within the next few years. All vital statistics, and 

 emphatically those of infant mortality, point to the superior- 

 ity of country life. Intellectually, the life of a large town 

 is unnatural in this sense, that the human race and its 

 ancestors, during all time up to a century or so ago, have 

 lived in the country, or within a mile of it, and the life of a 

 dweller in a city wholly cut off from the sights and sounds of 

 what Mr. II. Ci. Wells rightly calls the normal life is a new 

 and disquieting phenomenon. 



For centuries past statesmen have at intervals legislated 

 against rural depopulation,* and there is no doubt that their 

 instinct has been sound. Now this may be laid down without 

 fear of contradiction, that enterprising and self-respecting 

 men will not stay in the country if they can escape. They 

 will not bring up their sons to be agricultural labourers whilst 

 their only prospect is a hard and narrow life on a miserable 

 wage of 10s. to 20s. for a long day, seven days a week, and 

 nothing better than an old-age pension to hope for at the 

 end of it. The life of the proletarian in the big industries 

 is hard enough, and is ill recompensed with his wages of 20s. 

 to 40s. a week. But it is better than the semi-serfdom of the 

 farm labourer, Avho gets half his wages, and has at the same 

 time to touch his hat, go to church, vote as he is told, and 

 generally sell his soul as well as his labour power to his em- 

 ployer and the other rulers of the parish. If men are to be 

 kept in the country they must have a chance to get land, 

 to build up a permanent home for themselves in which they 

 can bring up children and grandchildren, and to which they 

 can look forward as a resting-place for old age. 



Again, small holdings tend to raise wages and increase the 

 prosperity, or rather prevent the decay, of village trade and 

 industry. They raise wages because the small holder is 

 often also a labourer, but a labourer who will only work for 

 others if it is made worth his while to do so. Even allotments 

 give a man some security against unemployment, some 



* See Tawuey, passim. 



