Dare any say that this whole vast question of the land, with its throbbing importance, yea--seeing that demobilisations do not come every year--its desperately immediate importance, is not fit matter for instant debate and action; dare any say that we ought to relegate it to that limbo "After the war"? In grim reality it takes precedence of every other question. It is infinitely more vital to our safety and our health than consideration of our future commercial arrangements. In our present Parliament--practically, if not sentimentally speaking--all shades of opinion are as well represented as they are likely to be in future Parliaments--even the interests of our women and our soldiers; to put off the good day when this question is threshed out, is to crane at an imagined hedge. Let us know now at what we are aiming, let us admit and record in the black and white of legislation that we intend to trim our course once more for the port of health and safety. If this Britain of ours is going to pin her whole future to a blind pursuit of wealth, without considering whether that wealth is making us all healthier and happier, many of us, like Sancho, would rather retire at once, and be made "governors of islands." For who can want part or lot on a ship which goes yawing with every sail set into the dark, without rudder, compass, or lighted star? I, for one, want a Britain who refuses to take the mere immediate line of least resistance, who knows and sets her course, and that a worthy one. So do we all, I believe, at heart--only, the current is so mighty and strong, and we are so used to it! By the parasitic and town-ridden condition we are in now, and in which without great and immediate effort we are likely to remain, we degrade our patriotism. That we should have to tremble lest we be starved is a miserable, a humiliating thought. To have had so little pride and independence of spirit as to have come to this, to have been such gobblers at wealth--who dare defend it? We have made our bed; let us, now, refuse to lie thereon. Better the floor than this dingy feather couch of suffocation. Our country is dear to us, and many are dying for her. There can be no consecration of their memory so deep or so true as this regeneration of The Land. 1917 THE LAND, 1918 I INTRODUCTORY Can one assume that the pinch of this war is really bringing home to us the vital need of growing our own food henceforth? I do not think so. Is there any serious shame felt at our parasitic condition? None. Are we in earnest about the resettlement of the land? Not yet.