On every side a wail is rising over the irreparable damage that is being done to the rural England that we all claim to love. The change that has occurred is most evident to those who have not witnessed its steady progress, rapid as it has been. To realise what has happened, let us put ourselves in the place of an Englishman who is now returning home after a sojourn of twenty years in some remote Eastern outpost of our Empire. Imagine him as a sensitive observer like Doughty or Kinglake, a man who has learned to appreciate the savage beauty of the Arabian desert, the very antithesis of his own land. But now at last the sand has eaten into his soul, and he is longing to see the English countr…
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