e solved the difficulty for themselves.

When the village governs itself and takes all matters into its own
hands, in time the sentiment of independence may grow up and men
begin to work and strive and save, that they may settle at home. It
would be a very noble thing indeed if the true English feeling for
home life should become the dominant passion of the country once
again. By home life I mean that which gathers about a house,
however small, standing in its own grounds. Something comes into
existence about such a house, an influence, a pervading feeling,
like some warm colour softening the whole, tinting the lichen on
the wall, even the very smoke-marks on the chimney. It is home, and
the men and women born there will never lose the tone it has given
them. Such homes are the strength of a land. The emigrant who
leaves us for the backwoods hopes to carve out a home for himself
there, and we consider that an ambition to be admired. I hope the
day will come when some at least of our people may be able to set
up homes for themselves in their own country. To-day, if they would
live, they must crowd into the city, often to dwell in the midst of
hideous squalor, or they must cross the ocean. They would rather
endure the squalor, rather say farewell for ever and sail for
America, than stay in the village where everyone is master, and
none of their class can be independent. The village must be its own
master before it becomes popular. County government may be
reformed with advantage, but that is not enough, because it must
necessarily be too far off. People in the country are scattered,
and each little centre is naturally only concerned with itself. A
government having its centre at the county town is too far away,
and is likely to bear too much resemblance to the boards of
guardians and present authorities, to be representative of land and
money rather than of men. Progress can only be made in each little
centre separately by means of village councils, genuinely
representative of the village folk, unswayed by mansion, vicarage,
or farm. Then by degrees we may hope to see the re-awakening of
English home-life in contradistinction to that unhappy restlessness
which drives so many to the cities.

Men will then wake up and work with energy because they will have
hope. The slow, plodding manner of the labourer--the dull ways even
of the many industrious cottagers--these will disappear, giving
place to push and enterprise. Why