LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
CINCINNATUS BRITANNICUS.
!To THE EDITOR OF Till " arscraroa."1 FIR,—Certain phrases seem able to acquire the authority of an axiom merely by the process of repetition. Uttered at a favourable moment and propagated by the Press, on the platform, and in general conversa- tion, they pass rapidly from lips to car, and in an incredibly short space of time arc quoted seriously by those who know. No one is in the humour to examine the validity of their title to respect. They rise and they pass on from strength to strength, simply because at their birth they touched some responsive nerve-centre in the public mind. A remarkable instance of this form of mental obsession is the statement which has lately run riot in the Press, that at the end of the war "the moldier tired" will, as it were automatically, shake from his feet the dust of his former calling. This tendency, the prophets declare, will be universal, but it will be most pronounced in the case of those who have hitherto followed sedentary occupations, of whom it is predicted that they will forthwith abandon office work and rush off to become culti- vators of the soil, either at home or in the Colonies. It is to be feared that no search would reveal the name of the originator of this belief ; be must take his stand beside the author of "Junius," and this is a matter of regret, for it is certain that this utterance—thrown off probably without consideration and founded on no knowledge of the subject— may have something to do with the making of history, and will certainly lead to the spending of huge sums of money—with what results the future will show—in the effort to turn soldiers, sailors, tinkers, tailors, s.T.X., into the industrial worker—successful specimens have been up to the present extremely rare—known as the small-holder of land.
Discussions as to the comparative advantages of town and country life are not uncommon, and if the question is looked at squarely, it will be found that, while there is a drift of well-to-do middle-aged people into the country, the younger members of the class from which the potential small-holder is to be recruited inevitably gravitate towards the towns. This tendency has long been the despair of the social reformer. He Las certainly done his best to counteract it, but little success has come of his efforts. Man is by no means disposed generally to follow the lines which right and reason command ; and, even though he be convinced of the justice of the claim they make for his service, he will persist in waling trial of the garish world. Though he may see it is his duty to help to double the output of bacon and poultry and vegetables, it will happen too often that the monotony of country life, and the dull, muddy village street on a lowering autumn or winter afternoon, will work so powerfully upon his spirits that at the first chance he will escape to enjoy the music-hall, the pictures, the racket of the pavement, and the glare of the shop-windows. Indeed, during the recent debate on the Government Bill there was evidence that the friends of the move- ment fully recognized the importance of this factor, for one speaker warned the House that parish halls and cinemas were items as im- portant as fowl-houses and pigsties to make the scheme successful.
The vision of a British Arcady still mocks the perception of social reformers. Most of them—and these the most eloquent—know no more a the life and work of a small-holder than they know of Patagonia. The sight of a field of barley waving under an August breeze, the scent of a haystack, the grave procession of a herd of cows back to the milking. shed, are gracious and seemly experiences, and in minds attuned by these, or by kindred aspects of country life, are engendered the current notions of a small cultivator's lot. Nothing is said of the long day of unremitting toil, the malice of the seasons, the gnawing anxiety, the struggle of the small man under his terrible handicap to compete with the large farmer with wide experience, economic methods, and labour- saving machinery. Out of our returning soldiers a few God-gifted ones may be of that rare stuff out of which small-holders may be made ; and should their inclination lead them that way, and should they be settled in favourable surroundings, they will succeed ; but to lure the men of the New Army indiscriminately into such a course would be unwise and cruel. The theorist points to the French and Belgian peasant, and asks how it is that our own people are not like these. Surely what can be done elsewhere can ako be done here ! The answer to this is that, with the Continental peasantry, small culture is an hereditary pursuit, and with us it is not. Our peasantry are hereditary wage- earners ; the wage-earning type of work is in their bones, so we possess no rock from which the successful small-holder may be hewn. For generations the French and Belgians have laboured on the land, spurred on by the sense that they were working for themselves and not for a master. weri.ling harder titan any other class in the world. The English wage-earner, put to work for himself, too often fails to realize that, to succeed, he must labour now as he never laboured before ; he cannot at once respond to the new forces which govern his new environment, and still keeps on with the same easy-going stroke. It is a matter of regret that things should be so ; but it is a fact past gainsaying. Still, as with all general statements, there are qualifications : notably the small culture in Axeholme, and a lesser-known instance at Oakley, in Bucks, an ordinary village with no special features, where, for some cause hitherto unexplained, small culture has long been prosecuted with success. Oakley has no advantages of soil, or market, or means of transit, but the adjacent country is heavily wooded, and winter labour in the plantations probably accounts for much. No one of the sup- porters of the view under criticism has brought forward an instance of a war which ended in a game of general post as to ank-bellum occupa- tions, or given adequate reasons why the men of the New Armies, after the peace, should be seized with a loathing of sedentary work, or why we should find ourselves in the midst of a social revolution when the fighting is done. There will be work in plenty. The difficulties which seem most threatening are finance and the position of women workers. A certain number of men will change their occupations. Some will stick to soldiering, some will emigrate, but as a rule the clerk will once more add up figures, the miner will win coal and iron, and the countryman will return to field work. A huge number will be released from the Army; but it must be remembered that a vast amount of work has been temporarily put aside, and will have to be resumed. It is waiting to be done, and a largo sum of money will be needed to pay the wage-bill. The chief aim of the Government should be to check all wade, and resolutely oppose all heroic schemes of land settlement till a trustworthy earnest of success shall be forthcoming. Advanced politicians cast scorn on the Government Bill, because it is such a little one; but that is its chief merit in the eyes of those who have first-hand knowledge of small-holdings.—I am, Sir, &c., W. G. WATERS.
Buckley, Easton Grey, Malmesbury. •
[Agreed. Our correspondent's plea for caution and prudence is a trimming of the boat which calls for our support. At the same. time, he must remember that even in the case of town-bred Englishmen there are a certain number, say one per cent., who have the anima naturaliter rusticana. They will make good land settlers. But if we disband, as we shall do, some five million men, this should give us- fifty thousand " possibles " as settlers. We may, then, reasonably expect about twenty-five thousand ex-soldiers to desire to try their hands at living on the land in some form or other.—En. Spectator.]
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