1 OCTOBER 1927, Page 13

* * * * I wonder whether the sacrifice was

necessary, or was due to a wrong conception of the value of local, of parochial wealth. Village people still need a local mill to compound their chicken and pig food, and small farmers still need a mill to which they can carry their grain on their own carts or lorries. Is it not just possible that the new popularity and value of poultry, and to a less degree of pigs, may help the few remaining mills to survive and restore them to some sort of prosperity? M the worst, the water-power that set those stone wheels grinding for a thousand years ought to keep its value as power, for whatever particular purpose.