bility of
any real amelioration of their condition until they possess settled
places of abode. Till then they must move to and fro, and increase
in restlessness and discontent. Till then they must live in debt,
from hand to mouth, and without hope of growth in material comfort.
A race for ever trembling on the verge of the workhouse cannot
progress and lay up for itself any saving against old age. Such a
race is feeble and lacks cohesion, and does not afford that backbone
an agricultural population should afford to the country at large. At
the last, it is to the countryman, to the ploughman, and 'the
farmer's boy,' that a land in difficulty looks for help. They are
the last line of defence--the reserve, the rampart of the nation.
Our last line at present is all unsettled and broken up, and has
lost its firm and solid front. Without homes, how can its ranks ever
become firm and solid again?

An agricultural labourer entering on a cottage and garden with his
family, we will suppose, is informed that so long as he pays his
rent he will not be disturbed. He then sets to work in his off hours
to cultivate his garden and his allotment; he plants fruit-trees; he
trains a creeper over his porch. His boys and girls have a home
whenever out of service, and when they are at home they can assist
in cultivating their father's little property. The family has a home
and a centre, and there it will remain for generations. Such is
certainly the case wherever a labourer has a cottage of his own. The
family inherit it for generations; it would not be difficult to find
cases in which occupation has endured for a hundred years. There is
no danger now of the younger members of the family staying too much
at home. The pressure of circumstances is too strong, as already
explained; all the tendencies of the time are such as would force
them from home in search of wages. There is no going back, they must
push forwards.

The cottage-tenure, like the farm-tenure, must come from the
landlord, of course. All movements must fall on the landlord unless
they are made imperial questions. It is always the landowner who has
to bear the burden in the end. As the cottages belong to the
landowners, fixity or certainty of tenure is like taking their
rights from them. But not more so than in the case of the exalted
compensation called tenant-right. Indeed, I think I shall show that
the change would be quite trifling beside measures which deal with
whole pr