Mr. Jesse Collings wrote to Thursday's Times a long and
very interesting letter on "the Land Question from the labourer's point of view." The main drift of that letter is that, even admitting England to be no longer a corn-growing country, still there are over £50,000,000 of agricultural imports, which England has every chance of producing, and of producing much better even than those countries which at present supply them. Thus we import £12,000,000 worth of butter and £5,000,000 worth of cheese, which we could, if the proper steps were taken, not only produce in this country, but produce much better than the countries which at present supply them. What is wanted, Mr. Collings says, is to render possible in England the kind of agriculture which succeeds so well in the Channel Islands. He advocates for this purpose not only the abolition of land settlements and the extension of allotments to labourers properly qualified to use them and pay the rent, but especially the training of the agricultural population in market-garden- ing, dairy work, and so forth, for which purpose he would have a bit of land attached to every rural school, and would appropriate endowments given for the education of the poor to their technical training in these most useful callings.
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