The disadvantage of being ruled by doctrinaires, most of them
town-bred, is well exemplified by the question of " tied " cottages, to which at the week-end 'Dr. Dalton made some characteristically statesmanlike references. The principle that a service tenancy—i.e., an . arrangement whereby an employee occupies a cottage, rent-free, as long as he works for the owner of the cottage—is a bad thing is already recognised by implica- tion in the law of the land ; under the Housing Act, 1949, the grants obtainable by anyone who builds a new agricultural cottage or improves an old one are specifically withheld from " tied" cottages. In point of fact practically the whole of our agricultural economy depends on the right men living in the right places, and in most cases the only way to ensure this is by a system' of service tenancies. •
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