The Happy Village England is being preserved at Rothamsted ;
and the more general work proceeds with vigour in most counties. An event in the campaign that should concern all country- men will take place in the same quarter of England on May 8th. The Country Preservers are to meet at Ashridge—at the Bonar Law College in that lovely and quite unspoilt bit of England—to discuss " the Village." It is a congenial theme. If a personal confession is allowed, for myself I never wrote anything with more pleasure than a little booklet called The Happy Village ; and in spite of backsliding in some places and the prevalence of the dreaded ribbon (as good a word as riband) development, English village life has been and is being reconstructed satisfactorily ; agricultural wages are better than they ever have been in history ; the old people remain in their cottages ; the men's clubs and, much more certainly, the women's institutes, have a new social range ; playing fields (as we were all reminded on the 17th) multiply. The worst evil by far, as it is to be hoped the speakers at Ashridge will insist, is the ownership a cottages by small tradesmen or landowners whose actions are wholly dictated by their agents. They often do the minimum of repairs and exact the maximum of rent. Six shillings a week for a hovel is not uncommon.
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