At the Conference of delegates of the National Liberal Association
at Gloucester, on Tuesday, the Rev. William Tuckwell, speaking on the allotments question, made a state. meat of far greater interest than any made by the purely political speakers. This was what he said :—" The labourer should get his allotment at the same price as the farmer on the other side of the hedge. The tenure should be prolonged. The labourer should have as much land as he could manage, and the cottage should be upon or very' close to the allotment. In the Allot- ments Act, now slowly being put into operation, all these con- ditions were habitually violated. In his parish in Warwickshire he had an estate of two hundred acres, and fifty-two tenants upon it. Three or four of them were comparatively well-to-do, holding twenty to twenty-five acres, being bakers, butchers, or grocers. He also had nearly fifty agricultural labourers holding land from half-an-acre to two acres in extent, at which they worked when their day's works was done. They paid £1 per acre, which was the fair agricultural rent of the district. They had fourteen years' leases, which would virtually be perpetual, and where the land was foul they paid no rent for two years. They all shared the rickyard and the barn at the homestead, and had what timber they wanted for pigetyes, partitions, &c. If any man left before his time expired, he received compensa- tion for what he had put into the land, that compensation being determined by a committee of five tenants, who managed the affairs, and were appointed by the tenants themselves. The result had been magnificent. The produce this year had been so great that one could hardly get round the cottagers' homes because of the bags of corn that were ranged round the walls. For the first time in their lives, many labourers were able to look the coming winter in the face without the fear of famine. This was the plan that ought to be promoted by Parliament all over the country." That seems to us a statement worthy of the closest attention of politicians of all parties. It seems to promise something like a revivification of rural labour, and therefore an antidote to our overcrowded cities.
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