HOMECROFTING AND UNEMPLOYMENT.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I am very much interested in what Professor Scott has taught us to call " Homecrofting." I am afraid it is true that without some sort of reform which would make land more easily accessible to Labour it would be difficult to introduce Homecrofting on any extensive scale into this country. Do those who believe in Homecrofting expect that every working- class family will grow its own food ? I think not ; but we should insist that those who have a desire that way should be able to get sufficient land to keep them going in food, perhaps for half the year, in case of need. We only say that Home- crofting would greatly relieve our present distresses if every working family had a second string to its bow.
Even under the present system a great deal might be done to increase the production of food, if, for instance, every town were empowered to buy up large areas of surrounding land at present prices (as they certainly ought to be), and as the Letchworth Garden City actually did.
I do not think we need worry about over-production of food in this country ; and, after all, food is the first thing necessary in case of war, and we have also to remember that we must provide for the time when foreign nations will no longer want to buy our goods at any price ; and we must then develop our home market to the utmost by making our own working-class people more and more self-supporting and prosperous. There will always be enough customers for the greengrocers. Homecrofting may end in our being once more a less industrial and a more agricultural people, to the much greater happiness of the majority of the remaining population. I fancy that the speculative capitalist would not care to have labour made more " independent " ; he wants what he calls " cheap " labour. But I have no great sympathy with him. His " cheap " labour is really dear in any case ; and I prefer Henry Ford's system.—I am, Sir, &c., J. P.
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