SMALL FARMS.
WHETHER the Small Farm and Labourers' Land Asso- ciation is destined to succeed in its main object or mot, it has already scored one victory. In spite of predictions so ominous and so likely to work their own fulfilment as those of Mr. Chamberlain, it has shown that if there be still differ- ences of opinion upon the wisdom of diffusing ownership in land, these differences do not run upon party lines. At the Mansion-House meeting on Tuesday, the Lord Mayor was in the chair, and among those who were present, or wrote wishing that they could be present, were Lord Carnarvon, Lord Pembroke, Lord Folkestone, Sir Robert Loyd-Lindsay, Mr. Read, and Mr. Pell. Good Conservative names these,—if good Conservative names there be anywhere. But by the side of these we read of Lord Ripon, Lord Rosebery, Mr. George Russell, Mr. Bryce, and Mr. Burt. Good Liberal names these, —if good Liberal names there be anywhere. When those who bear them are united in the active pursuit of a common end, we may at least be sure that this end is not political.
It was natural, however, when the two principal speakeri were Mr. George Russell and Sir Robert Loyd-Lindsay, that they should approach the subject from different points. Mr. Russell dwelt most upon the causes which produce the demand for land, Sir Robert Loyd-Lindsay upon the causes which produce the supply of it. Both speakers are anxious that land ehould be sold by those who are at present owners, and bought by those who are at present labourers. Indeed, it is the co- -existence of these two desires that gives the Small Farm and Labourers' Land Association whatever chances it has. For once there is not only those who want to get land, but those who want to get rid of it. Sir Robert Loyd-Lindsay can tell us how this latter class has come into being. Thousands of acres in almost every county are " tumbling down to grass." Those who are familiar with Western England may be dis- posed to think this no such terrible change. They will remember pleasant journeys through mile after mile of rich grazing- land, with the universal green only broken by the frequent cattle. But tumbling down to grass is not at all the same thing as being laid down in permanent pasture. The grass is not of the right sort, and it does not come in the right way. Nature is an excellent hand at draping the land with vegetation ; but when left alone she is principally concerned with covering it in the shortest possible time. " No proper grass-seeds are sown ; thistles, docks, and couch-grass establish themselves where previously corn, and turnips, and clover were cultivated." With such changes as these going on round them, it is not wonderful that land- owners should be willing to _sell. They cannot let their farms, they cannot in many cases cultivate them. Every quarter-day sees some tenant giving up his land to a landlord who is possibly unable to make any profitable use of it. But willingness to sell does not as of old bring immediate buyers. So long as the owner can sell bat to farmers or to other owners he is not likely to strike a bargain. The farmers are penniless or disgusted with the recurrent ill-luck of the last seven years. They cannot grow corn to a profit, and they do not yet see their way to growing much else. Owners, on tho other hand, are in the same position as the would-be vendor. They are competitors in the same market ; they want to sell land, not to buy it.
The only chance of getting rid of the land, therefore; is to find a new class of purchasers, and Mr. George Russell is able to suggest a direction in which this new. class may hopefully be looked for. About twenty-five years ago, he says, some -thirty-five labourers near the New Forest had a chance of buying land. Some of them bought as much as ten acres, -some less than five. But the majority bought five acres, and upon this quantity they were able to " maintain themselves in all the essential conditions of a decent, honest, wholesome, happy life." The soil was poor, but by degrees they improved it. They could not grow corn or plant orchards ; but they grew vegetables and small fruit, especially strawberries, and owned cows. The market-town was ten or twelve miles away, and if each man had carried his own produce to market he would have had to take time which could be more profitably employed in raising more produce. Consequently, they arranged to sell as though they were partners in a single farm. In this way there was no waste of time or labour. The carts went full to the town, and they returned full, for they brought -back the manure which was wanted for cultivation. This is an interesting picture, and if replicas of it could be set up all over England, they would greatly help to get over the present
difficulty. Nor would the labourers be simply coming to the aid of the landowners. They would be coming just as much to their own aid. The agricultural depression has arrested the upward movement of agricultural wages. Since the days when Canon Girdlestone first preached migration to the northern counties, and Mr. Arch founded the Labourers' Union, they have greatly risen ; but this year we hear once more of lower wages, and, what is worse, of no wages at all. Agricultural labourers can find no employment. "Tumbling down to grass " can be done without the aid of man. Thistles, docks, and couch-grass stand in no need of cultivation ; they look after themselves, while the labourer stands idle. It is as much to their interest, therefore, as to that of the landowners, that the present state of things should come to an end ; and if it be true that land can be worked at a profit by a man who owns just so much of it as he can cultivate himself, when it cannot be worked at a profit by a man who has more than he can cultivate himself and has to pay rent for it, a way suggests itself in which it may be brought to an end. Here comes in the use of the Small Farm and Labourers' Land Association. In transactions between landowners and labourers there is especial treed of a middleman. He is wanted by the owners because their object is to sell them land they want to part with straight off, and when the buyers are many, this is not easily arranged. He is wanted by the labourers because they have not the means of paying the purchase-money all at once, and the way in which it is most convenient for them to get over this difficulty is not the way which ordinarily suits the seller. The new Association comes forward to fill the gap. It proposes to buy land from the present owners, and then to sell it in small quantities, as opportunity offers, to labourers. It pro- poses to make it easy for the labourers to pay for what they buy without going to the money-lender and burdening them-. selves at starting with a load of debt.
Will the experiment succeed ? That is a point upon which it is impossible to have an opinion. The conditions of success, indeed, seem to exist ; but they have to be brought together afresh in each instance, and it remains to be seen how far the new Company will contrive to do this. They will have to consider the character of the land they buy, the price they have to pay for it, and the value as labourers of the men to whom they sell it. If the soil is such as lends itself to spade labour, if the price paid for it is moderate, and if the new owners are intelligent and hard-working, there is good ground for believing that peasant proprietorships may be multiplied with advantage alike to the labourers and the public. If, by the fault or the misfortune of the Association, all these conditions are not forthcoming, neither the labourers nor the public will be any the better for their multiplication. But whatever be the issue of the experiment, it is exceedingly desirable that it should be tried, and tried by this particular machinery, since if it be not, it will certainly be tried by some other machinery, and this other machinery will be the com- munity in some form. It is far better that the kind of experience which only a bond fide effort to create a peasant proprietary can possibly give us, should be gained in the first instance at the cost of private benevolence, and not at that of the national or local exchequer.
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