COUNTRY LIFE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVII, Issue 46, 24 October 1913, Page 5

COUNTRY LIFE.

THE LAND FORTHE PEOPLE _____ COTTAGES FOR EVERYONE. [By Electric Telegraph—Copyright]; [United Press Association.] London, October 23. Mr Lloyd George saiii that the! valuation 01 land would be completed in 1915. Tiie machinery for the valuation would 'be handed over to the Ministry of Lands, If the smallholder gets notice to quit the Minister would send an official inquirer. If he was told that the smallholder voted for a Radical or went to the Methodist; Church, he would say that is not an adequate cause. If a tenant was a bad fanner it was right that he should! be dispossessed of his interet in the j community, otherwise he would be entitled to compensation. In this way] tenants could get security of tenure. There were eight million acres of land j capable of afforestation. Planting trees would bring exposed land into cultivation. The men of the Highland glens gave Britain the regiments who! arrested Napoleon, but the men of the | glens had been swept away, the crofts, destroyed, and the whole place trodden; by deer. The Government would want to repopulate the glens- by reaiforesting the hillsides, giving winter employment iu the forests and in summer cultivation in the valleys. It was stu- 1 pid to allow tens of thousands of ro-j bust workmen to go to the wilds of j Canada when there was much land at Home.

The present conditions were bleed* ing the country, and the hemmorkage" i must be stopped. If the farmers were unable to pay minimum wages a com-| mission would have to fix abatements j in rents.

There was a deficiency of 120,000 cottages. The Government was going to use the insurance reserve funds for giving agricultural laborers a first cut off that. The joint commission would fix the price, thus getting the land, at a fair price. Every house would have a vegetable garden. The resources of the State were quite adequate to build country cottages for everyone. It was in the interests of the country to induce everyone to live outside the towns. Such methods would secure to the Motherland conditions wherein her children could rejoice and the Empire, to the end of the earth, would be proud.

Mr Lloyd George, in the evening, addressed an audience, of four thousand. He said that the programme, was not unauthorised. He spoke on be 7 half of the Premier and the whole of the Cabinet. Their opponents -were, ■already foaming, and ill. a few weeks there would not lie enough straight waistcoats in England for them. AGRICULTURAL GOLDEN ACE. I I London, Octoher 23. The Conservative papers sum up Mr Lloyd George's policy-as the inauguration, of a Golden Age for agri-1 culture by the creation of a new horde | of officials and an appeal to the cirpi-. ditv of class envy.