"And where would you wish to go to-day, sir?" asked his dragoman of the
Angel who was moving his head from side to side like a dromedary in the
Haymarket.
"I should like," the Angel answered, "to go into the country."
"The country!" returned his dragoman, doubtfully. "You will find very
little to see there."
"Natheless," said the Angel, spreading his wings.
"These," gasped his dragoman, after a few breathless minutes, "are the
Chilterns--they will serve; any part of the country is now the same.
Shall we descend?"
Alighting on what seemed to be a common, he removed the cloud moisture
from his brow, and shading his eyes with his hand, stood peering into
the distance on every side. "As I thought," he said; "there has been no
movement since I brought the Prime here in 1944; we shall have some
difficulty in getting lunch."
"A wonderfully peaceful spot," said the Angel.
"True," said his dragoman. "We might fly sixty miles in any direction
and not see a house in repair."
"Let us!" said the Angel. They flew a hundred, and alighted again.
"Same here!" said his dragoman. "This is Leicestershire. Note the
rolling landscape of wild pastures."
"I am getting hungry," said the Angel. "Let us fly again."
"I have told you, sir," remarked his dragoman, while they were flying,
"that we shall have the greatest difficulty in finding any inhabited
dwelling in the country. Had we not better alight at Blackton or
Bradleeds?"
"No," said the Angel. "I have come for a day in the fresh air."
"Would bilberries serve?" asked his dragoman; "for I see a man gathering
them."
The Angel closed his wings, and they dropped on to a moor close to an
aged man.
"My worthy wight," said the Angel, "we are hungry. Would you give us
some of your bilberries?"
"Wot oh!" ejaculated the ancient party; "never 'eard yer comin'. Been
flyin' by wireless, 'ave yer? Got an observer, I see," he added, jerking
his grizzled chin at the dragoman. "Strike me, it's the good old dyes o'
the Gryte Skirmish over agyne."
"Is this," asked the Angel, whose mouth was already black with
bilberries, "the dialect of rural England?"
"I will interrogate him, sir," said his dragoman, "for in truth I am at
a loss to account for the presence of a man in the country." He took the
old person by his last button and led him a little apart. Returning to
the Angel, who had finished the bilberries, he whispered:
"It is as I thought. This is the sole survivor of the soldiers settled
on the land at the conclusion of the Great Skirmish. He lives on
berries and birds who have died a natural death."
"I fail to understand," answered the Angel. "Where is all the rural
population, where the mansions of the great, the thriving farmer, the
contented peasant, the labourer about to have his minimum wage, the Old,
the Merrie England of 1910?"
"That," responded his dragoman somewhat dramatically, extending his hand
towards the old man, "_that_ is the rural population, and he a cockney
hardened in the Great Skirmish, or he could never have stayed the
course."
"What!" said the Angel; "is no food grown in all this land!"
"Not a cabbage," replied his dragoman; "not a mustard and cress--outside
the towns, that is."
"I perceive," said the Angel, "that I have lost touch with much that is
of interest. Give me, I pray, a brief sketch of the agricultural
movement."
"Why, sir," replied his dragoman, "the agricultural movement in this
country since the days of the Great Skirmish, when all were talking of
resettling the land, may be summed up in two words: 'Town Expansion.' In
order to make this clear to you, however, I must remind you of the
political currents of the past thirty years. You will not recollect
that during the Great Skirmish, beneath the seeming absence of politics,
there were germinating the Parties of the future. A secret but resolute
intention was forming in all minds to immolate those who had played any
part in politics before and during the important world-tragedy which was
then being enacted, especially such as continued to hold portfolios, or
persisted in asking questions in the House of Commons, as it was then
called. It was not that people held them to be responsible, but nerves
required soothing, and there is no anodyne, as you know, sir, equal to
human sacrifice. The politician was, as one may say--'off.' No sooner,
of course, was peace declared than the first real General Election was
held, and it was with a certain chagrin that the old Parties found
themselves in the soup. The Parties which had been forming beneath the
surface swept the country; one called itself the Patriotic, and was
called by its opponents the Prussian Party; the other called itself the
Laborious, and was called by its opponents the Loafing Party. Their
representatives were nearly all new men. In the first flush of peace,
with which the human mind ever associates plenty, they came out on such
an even keel that no Government could pass anything at all. Since,
however, it was imperative to find the interest on a National Debt of
£8,000,000,000, a further election was needed. This time, though the
word Peace remained, the word Plenty had already vanished; and the
Laborious Party, which, having much less to tax, felt that it could tax
more freely, found itself in an overwhelming majority. You will be
curious to hear, sir, of what elements this Party was composed. Its
solid bulk were the returned soldiers, and the other manual workers of
the country; but to this main body there was added a rump, of pundits,
men of excellent intentions, brains, and principles, such as in old days
had been known as Radicals and advanced Liberals. These had joined out
of despair, feeling that otherwise their very existence was jeopardised.
To this collocation--and to one or two other circumstances, as you will
presently see, sir--the doom of the land must be traced. Now, the
Laborious Party, apart from its rump, on which it would or could not
sit--we shall never know now--had views about the resettlement of the
land not far divergent from those held by the Patriotic Party, and they
proceeded to put a scheme into operation, which, for perhaps a year,
seemed to have a prospect of success. Many returned soldiers were
established in favourable localities, and there was even a disposition
to place the country on a self-sufficing basis in regard to food. But
they had not been in power eighteen months when their rump--which, as I
have told you, contained nearly all their principles--had a severe
attack of these. 'Free Trade,'--which, say what you will, follows the
line of least resistance and is based on the 'good of trade'--was, they
perceived, endangered, and they began to agitate against bonuses on corn
and preferential treatment of a pampered industry. The bonus on corn was
in consequence rescinded in 1924, and in lieu thereof the system of
small holdings was extended--on paper. At the same time the somewhat
stunning taxation which had been placed upon the wealthy began to cause
the break-up of landed estates. As the general bankruptcy and exhaustion
of Europe became more and more apparent the notion of danger from future
war began to seem increasingly remote, and the 'good of trade' became
again the one object before every British eye. Food from overseas was
cheapening once more. The inevitable occurred. Country mansions became a
drug in the market, farmers farmed at a loss; small holders went bust
daily, and emigrated; agricultural labourers sought the towns. In 1926
the Laborious Party, who had carried the taxation of their opponents to
a pitch beyond the power of human endurance, got what the racy call
'the knock,' and the four years which followed witnessed the bitterest
internecine struggle within the memory of every journalist. In the
course of this strife emigration increased and the land emptied rapidly.
The final victory of the Laborious Party, in 1930, saw them, still
propelled by their rump, committed, among other things, to a pure town
policy. They have never been out of power since; the result you see.
Food is now entirely brought from overseas, largely by submarine and air
service, in tabloid form, and expanded to its original proportions on
arrival by an ingenious process discovered by a German. The country is
now used only as a subject for sentimental poets, and to fly over, or by
lovers on bicycles at week-ends."
"_Mon Dieu!_" said the Angel thoughtfully. "To me, indeed, it seems that
this must have been a case of: 'Oh! What a surprise!'"
"You are not mistaken, sir," replied his dragoman; "people still open
their mouths over this consummation. It is pre-eminently an instance of
what will happen sometimes when you are not looking, even to the
English, who have been most fortunate in this respect. For you must
remember that all Parties, even the Pundits, have always declared that
rural life and all that, don't you know, is most necessary, and have
ever asserted that they were fostering it to the utmost. But they
forgot to remember that our circumstances, traditions, education, and
vested interests so favoured town life and the 'good of trade' that it
required a real and unparliamentary effort not to take that line of
least resistance. In fact, we have here a very good example of what I
told you the other day was our most striking characteristic--never
knowing where we are till after the event. But what with fog and
principles, how can you expect we should? Better be a little town
blighter with no constitution and high political principles, than your
mere healthy country product of a pampered industry. But you have not
yet seen the other side of the moon."
"To what do you refer?" asked the Angel.
"Why, sir, to the glorious expansion of the towns. To this I shall
introduce you to-morrow, if such is your pleasure."
"Is London, then, not a town?" asked the Angel playfully.
"London?" cried his dragoman; "a mere pleasure village. To which real
town shall I take you? Liverchester?"
"Anywhere," said the Angel, "where I can get a good dinner." So-saying,
he paid the rural population with a smile and spread his wings.