rty and liberty and
see what he will build on that foundation. The war had already shown
not only the courage of our men but their contrivance: their trench
newspapers, songs and jests: their initiative as sailors and as
airmen: at home the same thing was happening. Allotments had sprung
up everywhere and solved the problem of potato shortage. Men were
doing for themselves a rough kind of building. The inclination to get
away from the machine and do things oneself was on the increase.

Armistice and the men's return were heralded by outdoor tea-parties
with ropes stretched across the streets for safety. The outburst of
pageants was spontaneous and national. "It is time," said Chesterton,
"for an army of amateurs; for England is perishing of the
professionals." Vitality seemed to be flowing back into national
life, but Bureaucracy does not love vitality. Agitated Town Councils
met and stopped the tea-parties; fought against street markets
through which allotment holders could sell their produce cheaply; put
heavy rates on land reclaimed and buildings erected by hard work.
Town families living in single rooms had secured plots on building
estates and run up shacks for themselves and their families. They
were forbidden to live in these dwellings--only intended as
temporary, but far more healthy than living eight people to a room in
a slum. The _New Witness_ suspected that the real objection in the
eyes of Councillors was a lowering of the value of neighbouring plots
for wealthier purchasers.

Worst of all, the allotments were taken: fields sold for speculative
building, land dug in public parks taken away in the name of
"amenities." The little spark that could have been fanned into a
flame was crushed out.

An episode of a few years later best illustrates the spirit
Chesterton was fighting. In 1926 a threat arose to the traffic
monopoly from soldiers who put their war gratuities into the purchase
of omnibuses which they drove themselves. The London General Omnibus
Company decided to crush them and with the aid of a Government
Commission succeeded. Chesterton's paper followed the struggle with
passionate interest. Just as he believed that the small shop actually
served the public better than the large, so too he believed that
these owner-drivers would serve it better than the Combine. But if it
could have been proved that the Combine was more efficient Gilbert
would still have championed the Independents. It was better