Page:The Hare.djvu/110

88 this way the value of residential property is directly impaired, fewer and fewer capitalists care to invest in land which they can no longer deal with as their own property, and less and less money is brought into the rural districts. What wonder, then, that our farmers crowd the bankruptcy courts, or retire with the wreck of their capital from the attempt to make a living out of their holdings, while the labourer throngs into the towns to aid in the congestion of the labour market and to swell the ranks of the unemployed! No allotments or village councils will attach him to the land. What he wants is abundance of suitable employment at good wages, with a comfortable home to lie down in at night; and how can these desiderata be arrived at unless everything is done to attract capital into the rural districts, so that the riches accumulated in towns may be spent in the improvement and beautifying of the country estates, giving abundance of work to all the labourers obtainable, and diffusing plenty around?

With Acts of Parliament like the Ground Game Act, and the tendency of the Legislature to multiply such restrictions upon the use and enjoyment of property, it is no wonder that most capitalists fight shy of land, and less money is laid out for the benefit of the labourer and village resident than was the case