*LEST WE FORGET!" 233

the world had seen, gave bread to 17,000,000 and meat to the
whole population.

Those were the days when the Earl of Ladythorne sat at the
covert side like a gentleman at his opera stall, thinking what a
good thing it was to be a lord with a sound digestion and plenty
of cash, when tenant fanners built conservatories and planted
ornamental trees, and young ladies in flowing skirts and jackets
and little feathered caps played croquet on ancient lawns or
gossiped over "hair brushings" in rooms once habited by
Elizabedian statesmen and Carolean divines. The great parks
with tlMr noble trees slumbered ia the sunlight of those distant
summers; children born heirs to the securest and happiest lot
humankind had ever known, rode and played in their shade
never guessing that in their old age they would see the classic
groves felled by the estate breaker and the stately halls pulled
down or sold to make convalescent homes for miners or county
asylums.

Yet all the while behind the dark curtain of time harvests
were ripening on the vitgin plains of other continents which
were to,put an end to all this prosperity. Year by year the rail-
ways crept farther into the prairies, while the freight of the
iron ships increased and man's ingenuity found new ways to
preserve meat and foodstuffs from decay.

When the trumpet sounded the walls of Jericho that had
seemed so strong fell. They could not stand against the inrush
of cheap foreign food. They lacked defenders. The urban voters
had lost interest in the countryside. The rural workers were
without votes and, since the enclosures of the past century,
. without a stake in the land. The social basis of British agri-
culture was too narrow: its ownership concentrated in too few
hands. Some four thousand squires owned more than half the
land of England and Wales. Seven hundred thousand cottagers
between them only possessed 150,000 out of 39,000,000 cultivated
acres. They could not defend an interest they did not enjoy.

Henceforward the foreigner was to feed Britain. Corn in
bulk came from America: frozen mutton from Australia1 and

1 Australian frozen beef -was appearing on British dinner tables as early as 1872
when Punch published a new version of "The Roast Beef of Old England" entitled
"The Sirloin Suspended*:

"Once mighty roast beef was the Englishman's food,
It has now grown so dear that 'tis nearly tabooed;
But Australian beef potted is cheap and is good,
O the boiled beef of Australia, and 0 the Australian boiled beef!