THE UNION FARM AT SHEFFIELD.
THE Sheffield Guardians continue their experiment in reproduc- tive employment, in spite of serious obstruction' with much per- tinacity, and very cheering results. Since we last noticed the sub- ject, about two years back, the experiment has undergone a severe trial : a new board of Guardians was elected, not altogether hos- tile to the experiment, but decidedly hostile to the -Union Clerk, 'under whom it had flourished ; and therefore they took the man- egement altogether out of his hands. Hence there was a sort of interregnum for a year, during which the experiment was con- tinued; but with less energy and clearness of purpose. At the last election, however, the choice of the ratepayers reestablished 41 board less antagonistic ; and the experiment proceeds again un- der the management of its original founder.
The grand difference between the two parties is this—whether should the labour of paupers be applied to the cultivation of land, or to its simple reclamation ? and it was the reclamation party that caused the interregnum. Much may be said in favour of their opinion, but it is open to three serious objections : difficulties in the present law impede that free purchase and sale of land in large quantities which *could be desirable for the process of recla- mation; reclamation is only suited to really ablebodied men, whereas an easy cultivation can employ the comparatively non- effective—but there are at present no ablebodied paupers on the Sheffield books; and in some unions there is no waste land to re- claim. For the purposes of pauper labour, plain moderate culti- vation seems to be the best ; and that is the plan used at Sheffield. The farm has now been brought into a state to depasture cattle and to produce both milk and potatoes for the workhouse.
After all items are set one against the other, the loss on the farm is about 61/. a year. This result is subject to two observa- tions. In the first place, the Guardians cannot take into account, as to be realized, the improved value of the land—which they hold on lease—simply because they cannot buy and sell it; other- wir:p they would have an asset of more than 500/. But that inability, lying in the present state of the law, might easily be removed; and therefore the additional value is a fair item in the account, as showing the success of the experiment. For, be it re- membered, the Sheffield Guardians are practical Poor-law Re- formers working without a reformed law. In the second place, the farm is a constituent part of the workhouse establishment, and the 611. is really the cost of working a labour-test. Now, what is ob- tained for that outlay ? A labour-test so little vexatious, that the moody and contumacious behaviour of the ablebodied in "the house, which first suggested the experiment, ceased as soon as the men were transferred to the farm, where they became cheerful and diligent labourers; and at the eame time, a labour-test so effective that there is not a single ablebodied man on the farm—none who is not fairly entitled to relief. Against the cost must be set the absence of those men who would otherwise have been chargeable in the house-account ; and some there certainly would have been. And even if they should come on, the test being of a truly repro- ductive kind, their labour would bring a specific value with it, and their maintenance would not be a dead loss.
These facts came out clearly enough at the annual visitation, last week; which was attended by men well capable of spreading the practical information thus obtained : among them, for instance, were Mr. John Holmes, of Leeds, an active reformer of labour pro- cesses; and Lord Goderich, heir to broad estates a student of in- dustrial economy, and successor in Parliament to the seat held by the late President of the Poor-law Board ; a deputation from the Leeds Guardians, and inquirers from Hull, Manchester' Eccleshall, &e. Mr. Stark, the Secretary of the Poor-law Reform Association, and Mr. ittechi, the agricultural experimenter, are among the earn- est correspondents. For inquirers of such sort the Sheffield Guard- ians afford a valuable loons stands; and in turn, such allies must
extend the doctrine which the Guardians have done so much to illus- trate—so much, and with so disinterested and public-spirited a zeal.
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