To compete with this lure of the towns, there must first be _national_ consciousness of its danger; then coherent _national_ effort to fight it. We must destroy the shibboleth: "All for wealth!" and re-write it: "All for health!"--the only wealth worth having. Wealth is not an end, surely. Then, to what is it the means, if not to health? Once we admit that in spite of our wealth our national health is going downhill through town-blight, we assert the failure of our country's ideals and life. And if, having got into a vicious state of congested town existence, we refuse to make an effort to get out again, because it is necessary to "hold our own commercially," and feed "the people" cheaply, we are in effect saying: "We certainly are going to hell, but look--how successfully!" I suggest rather that we try to pull ourselves up again out of the pit of destruction, even if to do so involves us in a certain amount of monetary loss and inconvenience. Yielding to no one in desire that "the people" should be well, nay better, fed, I decline utterly to accept the doctrine that there is no way of doing this compatible with an increased country population and the growth of our own food. In national matters, where there is a general and not a mere Party will, there is a way, and the way is not to be recoiled from because the first years of the change may necessitate Governmental regulation. Many people hold that our salvation will come through education. Education on right lines underlies everything, of course; but unless education includes the growth of our own food and return to the land in substantial measure, education cannot save us. It may be natural to want to go to hell; it is certainly easy; we have gone so far in that direction that we cannot hope to be haloed in our time. For good or evil, the great towns are here, and we can but mitigate. The indicated policy of mitigation is fivefold:-- (1) Such solid economic basis to the growth of our food as will give us again national security, more arable land than we have ever had, and on it a full complement of well-paid workers, with better cottages, and a livened village life. (2) A vast number of small holdings, State-created, with co-operative working. (3) A wide belt-system of garden allotments round every town, industrial or not. (4) Drastic improvements in housing, feeding, and sanitation in the towns themselves. (5) Education that shall raise not only the standard of knowledge but the standard of taste in town and country.