"And would you mind telling me," I asked, emboldened by Jamie's personal question, "how it has come about that you look upon your special land ownership with such a broad human outlook?" "And this really interests you?" He asked me in some surprise. "It really interests me--why should n't it when I have my own livelihood to earn? The economic question, so-called, seems to me to resolve itself into the question: How are we, I and my brothers and sisters, who work in one way and another, going to feed and clothe ourselves--and yet not live by bread alone? But, I don't suppose you know that side of it, only theoretically?" "Yes, and no. I got all my inspiration about this land question in England." "In England!" Jamie repeated, showing his surprise. "That would seem the last place for the advancement of such theories about land as I have heard you explain more than once." "In this way. The object lesson came from England--but was upside down on my national retina. I had to re-adjust it in Canada. It's just here; the condition of England is this--I have seen it with both bodily and spiritual eyes:--That snug little, tight little island is what you might call in athletic parlance 'muscle bound'. I 'll explain. For more than a century she has colonized. What is left now? Her land owned by the few; her population, that which is left, rapidly pauperizing. England, with a land for the sustenance of millions, is powerless to help, to succor her own. She has too much unused land, as the muscle-bound athlete has too much muscle. It handicaps her in all progress. Her classes are now two: the very poor, and the poor who have no land; the rich who have practically all the land. In this condition of things her economical and political system is drained of it best. "Scotch, English, Irish--the clearest brains, the best muscle, the highest hearts, are coming over here to Canada. This land is the great free land for the many. In settling here, I wanted to add my quota of effort in the right direction. And I cannot see but that this little piece of earth, three thousand acres in all, on which, for two hundred years, men, women and children have succeeded one another, multiplying as generation after generation, have gone on caring for the land, living from it,--but never owning a foot of it,--is the best kind of an experiment station for working out my principles. I am about to apply the result of my English object lesson here in Lamoral. I have been telling Miss Farrell about the disposition I intend to make of it, gradually, of course. Perhaps you would like to hear sometime." "Will you tell me about it in detail?" Jamie asked eagerly. "I am only too pleased to find a listener, an interested one. Miss Farrell has proven a good one--I've kept you already two hours." He rose.