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Books
Flee To the Fields - The Founding Papers of the Catholic Land Movement
Reviewed by Peter Chojnowski
The State should rededicate itself
to the common, rather than the private good
FLEE TO THE FIELDS:
The Founding Papers of the Catholic Land Movement
Introduction by Dr Tobias Lanz and original preface by Hilaire
Belloc
(IHS Press, 2003, 153pp $24.95 Available from AD Books)
"Parliament today means Plutocracy. The beastly
condition of Parliament is a byword. The atmosphere of bribery and
blackmail - it is rather a stench than an atmosphere - is the very
air of what is called 'Politics.' Until you have got rid of that
you can do nothing. So long as the legislative machine is
controlled by and composed of the monopolists, all effort at
restoring healthy economic life will fail."
These sobering and frank words of Hilaire Belloc, found in his
original preface to Flee to the Fields: The Founding Papers of
the Catholic Land Movement first published in the Depression
year of 1934, are both a realistic assessment of the entire "Back
to the Land" movement, both then and now, and an indication of the
paradoxes and unresolved tensions that pervade every article in
this text.
Belloc, in his preface, points out that a healthy reinvigoration
of society, the logical fruit of any return to the normal and most
common form of human life and occupation, can only be realised if
the governing power of the State dedicates itself to the
maintenance of the common good, rather than the private good (here
read "bottom line") of those who "sponsor" and "finance" the rulers
of the State.
Here, Belloc draws attention to a point which appears to evade
most contemporary political thinkers, even those who are
"conservative."
The problem with our own times and the problem with the
countries that most of us live in, is that the State has been
handed over to private interests; private interests that "cash out"
in the augmentation of privately held bank accounts.
It is counter-intuitive to believe that those who possess access
to the halls of political power will ever countenance a situation
in which their monopoly on the resources of the nation is thrown
into doubt.
So it is with these practical words of warning that Belloc
prefaces the enthusiastic and unequivocal articles in this agrarian
manifesto. His words very much echo those of Arthur Penty who
stated that for a family to embrace farm life without price
regulation and control on the part of the government would be
tantamount to economic suicide.
With all this said, Flee to the Fields is an unapologetic
agrarian manifesto. Dr Tobias Lanz makes this clear in his new
introduction to this work by comparing the Catholic Land Movement,
and the British Distributists who were behind it, to the American
Southern Agrarian writers in the first half of the 20th
century.
What is important for us to be aware of is that the Catholic
Land Movement was not just a bunch of "egghead" intellectuals
"sitting around" and talking about "getting their hands dirty."
As Fr John McQuillan in his article on the origins of the
movement points out, the movement began with the full support
(moral, if not financial) of the British Catholic hierarchy in
Glasgow on 26 April 1929, prior to the Wall Street Stock Market
Crash.
The Scottish Catholic Land Association was quickly complemented
by similar associations in the Midlands and the north and south of
England. The "sitting around" (also known as coherent prudential
planning, propagandising, and conceptual clarification of ends and
means) only lasted until 27 May 1931, when the Scottish Catholic
Land Association leased Broadfield Farm, Symington,
Lanarkshire.
It was opened as a training centre for young men who wished to
learn farming and to settle later on the land. They were
accompanied by Fr John McQuillan, who became the parish priest of
the surrounding district.
By 1934, the year of first publication for Flee to the
Fields, significant numbers of young men, adopted by the
respective Catholic Land Associations, were fully trained in every
branch of farming. Some obtained their own family farms, while some
became managers of farms.
We find in this text, along with plenty of detailed descriptions
of the work of the British Catholic Land Movement and the support
that it received from popes, cardinals and intellectuals, a
theoretical defence of the agrarian position, specifically the
"Back to the Land" movement, which had such prestigious backers as
Hilaire Belloc, G.K Chesterton, and Fr Vincent McNabb.
Industrialism
In an article titled, "The Rise and Fall of Industrialism,"
Commander Herbert Shove grounds the ideology of British Agrarianism
in a systematic analysis of British history, beginning with the
Medieval feudal system and ending with the emergence of a fully
industrial and monopolistic system in the 19th century.
By the 19th century, the proletarianisation of the English
masses began. Rather than the immemorial village, always resonant
with the felt sense of community and ancestral ties and
obligations, "the developed city was essentially nothing more than
a small group of steam engines round which those whose livelihood
depended on attending the machines they drove were forced to
crowd."
Those who "crowded" around the steam engines of industry were
disproportionately adherents of the Catholic Faith. This was true
in both Britain and the United States.
At the time of the publication of Flee to the Fields,
some 80 percent of the population of Great Britain was crowded into
town and city, while some 95 percent of the Catholic population was
so situated.
Just as many American churchmen in the 19th century feared the
assimilation of the Catholic population into Protestant groups on
account of overwhelming social and economic pressure, so too did
the British Catholic elite fear that the conditions of urban life
would act to further the "contraceptive mentality" amongst the
Catholic peoples.
Here we find one of the main motivations behind the "Back to the
Land" movement of the pre-World War II years. On this note, it is
informative to quote Dr Tobias Lanz, who states that, "Despite a
well-conceived economic program, the moral backing of Catholic
hierarchies in England, Wales, and Scotland, and the intellectual
support of a host of writers and activists, the Catholic Land
Movement - and the entire Distributist project - failed, with the
coming of World War Two."
It was a real desire to see the beginnings of a reorientation of
the Catholic soul toward life on the land which produced both the
land movement in Britain and this manifesto of its intent. Without
that movement, people, such as Fr Vincent McNabb, were convinced
that Catholic family life would be eroded and, finally, completely
dislodged, due to the unnatural environment of the cities and the
fact that, in city life, a man's place of work is in one place and
his home and family in another.
It was to the not impossible dream of a free man on his own land
with family at hand that Flee to the Fields was
dedicated.
Dr Peter Chojnowski is an American Catholic writer and
academic.
Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 17 No 6 (July 2004), p. 16 | 
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