I need not urge the importance in our villages of real independence of
life. It was the absence of independence combined with long working
hours and little occupation for the hours of leisure, which, more than
low wages, caused the pre-war exodus from the country. Should the
prospects of industry improve, but agriculture remain depressed, there
will be another exodus from the country-side of the best of the young
men who have come back to it after the war. It is of first-class
importance, both from the national and from the agricultural point of
view, that they should stay, for there was a real danger before the war
that agriculture might become a residual industry, carried on mainly by
them, too lethargic in mind and body to do anything else.
In a preface which he wrote to Volume I of the Land Report, as chairman
of Lloyd George's Land Inquiry Committee (it seems a long time ago now
that Lloyd George was a keen land reformer), my father sketched out the
idea of setting up commissions to report parish by parish in each
county, in the same way that commissions have reported on the parochial
charities. They would record how the land was distributed, whether the
influence of the landowners told for freedom or against it, whether
there was a chance for the labourer to get on to the land and to mount
the ladder. Whether there was an efficient village institute, whether
there were enough allotments conveniently situated, whether the
cottagers were allowed to keep pigs and poultry, and what the health and
housing were like.
It is a good idea, and should be borne in mind. I confess I do not know
enough to know whether it is now as desirable as it seemed to be before
the war. I would fain hope not, but I am not sure. I believe that there
is a good deal more real independent life in the villages now than there
was ten years ago. There are, I think, now fewer villages like some in
North Yorkshire before the war, in which the only chance for a Liberal
candidate to have a meeting was to have it in the open-air, after dark
on a night with no moon, and even then he needed a big voice--for his
immediate audience was apt to be two dogs and a pig. Now, it seems to me
that people like having political meetings going on, but do not bother
to listen to any of them.
As to the present, there has been lately, within my knowledge, a great
building of village institutes. There has been a tremendous development
of football. Village industries, under the wise encouragement of the
Development Commission, are reviving. Motor buses make access to town
amusements much easier, and cinemas come out into the village. There is
revived interest and very keen competition in the allotment and cottage
garden shows. Thus it is, at any rate, down our way--but no one can know
more than his own bit of country. On these and similar matters we ought
to think and watch and meet together to report and discuss. We need more
Maurice Hewletts and Mrs. Sturge Grettons to tell us how things really
are, for nothing is so difficult to visualise as what is going on slowly
in one's own parish.