As every circle has its centre, so had every manor its hall, the centre of its organization, the heartwhence throbbed the vital force through the district, and to which it returned. The hall was notmerely the place where the lord lived, for he did not always occupy it, but it was the gathering placeof the courts leet and baron.It is the fashion to hold that land was originally held in common, and that private proprietorshipin land is an encroachment on the public rights.That was, no doubt, the case with the Celt, and it has been fatal to his ever taking a lead amongthe nations; it has so eaten into his habits of mind as to have rendered him incapable of being otherthan a subject under the control of another people, which had happily got beyond such infantilenotions.It is the case with individuals, starting on the battle of life, that they sometimes, by chance, take awrong direction, and then, once involved therein, have not the power or will or chance to turn backand take another. That is how some men make a botch of their lives, whereas others, perhaps theirinferiors in ability, by mere accident strike on a course which leads to power, prosperity, and a name.It is so among nations, races-and among these the highly-gifted Celt went wrong at theoutstart, and that is it which has been his bane through centuries. Now the time for recovery is past.He is forced to take a lower room.The French, that is to say the Gauls under Frank domination, were forcibly put right. I do notdeny that feudalism led to gross abuses, and that it was well to have these swept away, but thatwhich I think was fatal to France at the Revolution was reversion to the Celtic principle ofsubdivision. This is inevitably and inexorably killing France; it is reducing its population, extinguishing its life.SOUTH WRAXALL, WILTSHIREThe QuadrangleBetween 1831 and 1840 there were in France but three departments in which the mortalityexceeded the natality, now there are between forty-five to sixty departments in this condition.13"If we traverse France rapidly in train from the Channel to the Pyrenees, there is oneobservation that may be made from the carriage windows. Between the Loire and the Garonne, indepartments where the soil is poor, there the houses are smiling and well kept-there is evidence ofcomfort. But, on the contrary, in the departments formerly the richest, there are crumbling walls andempty houses.... The rich departments are being depopulated, and in the poor ones there thepopulation remains stationary or only slowly decreases."[3]The population in the rich departments is dwindling at the rate of 50 per cent. in half a century