THE LAND AND THE LABOURERS.* UNDER this title, the Rev.
C. W. Stubbs, Vicar of Gran- borough, Bucks, has written an interesting record of facts and experiments in cottage-farming and co-operative agriculture. The author tells us that twelve years' work as a clergyman in a. Buckinghamshire village has forced upon him two very definite conclusions, as follows :—
"1. That of the many urgent problems with which, at the present moment, Englishmen are confronted, there are few whose solution is not largely dependent upon such a revision of the English Land System as shall permanently raise the social and economic condition of the English rural labourer. 2. That any permanent elevation of the rural labourer's standard of comfort is impossible, unless there. can be effected either (a), a great increase in the proportion of small agricultural holdings in England ; or (b), the adoption of some system. of agriculture, probably co operative, which shall once more make it economically advisable to increase largely the amount of English labour applied to English land."
It was to justify these two conclusions that Mr. Stubbs wrote
the book before us.
Before writing upon his subject, Mr. Stubbs took the very practical step of testing the question whether small farming could be made to pay in his own village. He divided 22 acres of his glebe into half-acre allotments, and let them to his parishioners at the high annual rent of 66s. an acre, free, we pre- sume, of rates as well as tithes. One acre he retained in his own hands, and worked it on the same system of husbandry as was applied on the other allotments, growing the ordinary farm crops and a few garden vegetables. Having kept accurate
* The Land and the Labourers. By Charles William Stubbs, MA., Vicar of Granborough, Author of "Village Politico," .to. Loudon: W. Swan Bonnet- schein and Co. accounts, Mr. Stubbs states that, in the six years of agricultural depression ending with 1883, he has made an average profit of a few pence over 23 8s. per acre per annum, after allowing fully for rent and all other expenses. Having no stock-in-trade beyond a few hand-tools, it is to be presumed, Mr. Stubbs is justified in reckoning his capital employed on the acre of land as equivalent to the average annual outgoings, 212 3s. 61d. The average receipts were 215 12s. 4d., and the average profit was, therefore, 2,3: 8s. 91d., or about 28 per cent, on the capital employed. The most remarkable feature in this successful result is the fact that Mr. Stubbs certainly does not owe it to his high farming ; forAlthough he sold everything off the land, he spent only 30s. per acre in manure. Judging from a typical balance-sheet which is given, no " fancy " crops were grown, wheat, beans, mangold-wurtzel, potatoes, and carrots being the only crops named. But Mr. Stubbs grew at the rate of forty bushels of wheat to the acre, a remarkable average for such years as the last six ; and potatoes appear also to have yielded abundantly. Such results undoubtedly go far to prove what Mr. Stubbs contends for,—that the land of this country is labour-starved; for his only heavy expenditure, besides his excessively high rent, was upon labour, for which he paid 2,6 7e. 9d. per acre. And yet this point must not be pressed too far. Mr. Stubbs's farming was spade cultiva- tion, and although about three times an ordinary farmer's expenditure in labour paid well in his case, it does not follow that anything like an equivalent outlay would pay where the plough is used. We mention this because Mr. Stubbs appears to trace a great proportion of the large farmers' losses in recent years to their diminished employment of labour. It is possible, and indeed probable, that they have carried this economy to excess, and have lost by it, but Mr. Stubbs's ex- periment does not prove that. What it does prove—for the labourers on his glebe, with their half-acres, appear to have done at least as well as he did—is that allotments are highly beneficial to farm labourers.
It is to be observed that the labourers who cultivated the allotments at Granborough were working regularly for large farmers, and that the profits which they gained were in addition to their wages. As they and their families probably did all the work, they saved the 26 per acre which Mr. Stubbs paid for labour. But taking four acres to be the maximum area of land that an average labourer and family can cultivate by spade husbandry, the returns, if only at the rate of those realised by Mr. Stubbs, would not be sufficient to justify a man in giving op his employment on a large farm. Adding the cost of labour to the profit, there would be about 210 per acre, or 240 a year, for the labourer and his family, which is less than they earn in most districts by working for others. It is clear, then, that more remunerative crops than those grown by Mr. Stubbs would have to be cultivated in order to allow of a sufficient return to peasant- farming. It is in the production of fruit, vegetables, poultry, eggs, pork, and dairy produce that there is the best chance for small farmers. Another important point is that there is no justification for such a rent as Mr. Stubbs charged, where no farm ,buildings are required. The allotment system and the small-farm system in this country have been most unfairly handicapped by rents double those charged to the neighbouring large farmers.
Mr. Stubbs makes a good point, when he comes to apply the lesson taught by his experiment to the question of cottage accommodation. It is said that the building of cottages fit for men to live in does not pay in the rural districts, and at existing rates of wages Mr. Stubbs admits that farm labourers cannot pay enough rent to remunerate sufficiently those who build good cottages. But he says, "although a cottage without land can- not, undeipresent conditions, be built to pay, a cottage with land can." For, as he further observes, "a cottager who cannot afford to pay 2e. a week for a cottage only, can well afford to pay 3s. 6d. or 4s., or even more, for the same cottage with an acre of land attached." There can be no doubt about this, and herein lies the solution of the difficulty of cottage-building in the rural districts, if we could but get rid of the unworthy pre- judice against letting the labourers have land which is still too common among landlords and farmers. Herein, moreover, lies the solution of more difficulties than that of cottage-building. Give the labourers land with good cottages, and they will no longer desert the villages to overcrowd the large towns. There may be labourers who do not require land, beyond a small garden ; but these are sufficiently provided for in the village
streets. It is for landowners, with their broad acres, to take care that every one of tbeir cottages outside the street shall be provided with from half an acre to an acre of laud. Besides this, to offer the " career " that has been so well said to be the one thing wanting to keep the best of the labourers in the country districts, there should be a few small farms in every parish which could be obtained by industrious men who have saved a little money.
Mr. Stubbs speaks with authority as to the social and moral results of giving land to farm labourers, as he has found the most beneficial results in his own parish. Nothing, he truly observes, can encourage thrift and self-denial and promote steadiness among labourers so efficiently as the opportunity of acquiring land. It is the best savings-bank they can have, and it is the best counter-attraction to the public-house. "I know nothing," he says, "which fires the imagination of the rural labourer more than does that opportunity. To my mind, it is the natural starting-point in any successful scheme for the depauperisation of the labouring population."
In telling briefly the history of the allotment system, Mr. Stabbs shows how great have been the difficulties of those who have striven to establish it. In spite of the recommendations of Royal Commissions, since the beginning of the present century very little has been done towards supplying even smell plots of land to the rural labourers. Indeed, through the enclosure of commons, the labourers have been rendered more landless than ever. The Charity Commissioners come in for a full share of the censure which Mr. Stubbs, moderately and jus- tifiably, passes upon the opponents of the system. Even now that the Allotment Extension Act has been passed, the difficul- ties are by no means over, as the Charity Commissioners and most trustees of parish charity lands do all they can to obstruct the operation of the Act, which the Commissioners opposed. Mr. Howard Evans, to whose efforts, as well as to those of Mr. Jesse Collings, the passing of the measure is largely due, says :—" The tricks resorted to toy the trustees are simply infamous. In some cases they have let the land on a long lease, so as to evade the Act ; in others, they have, contrary to law, charged exorbitant rents; in others, they have, contrary to law, refused to let except to farm labourers, and sometimes only to farm labourers who are householders ; in others, they have ignored the Act altogether ; in others, they have illegally demanded half-a-year's rent in advance. In some of these cases, the men have appealed to the Charity Commissioners in vain." So numerous, indeed, have been the complaints made to Mr. Jesse Collings, that he has felt compelled to appeal for assistance in starting a tem- porary society, called the Allotments Extension Association, to see that the Act is properly carried out. The quantity of land coming under the provisions of the Act is not quite a quarter of a million of acres. That is none too much ; but if properly apportioned, it would effect a good start in providing rural workman with plots of land, and it is for Parliament to see that its bequest is not misappropriated.
The few attempts at co-operative farming that have been made in the United Kingdom are described by Mr. Stubbs. He mentions only five, and we do not know of any others. Of two made at Assington, in Suffolk, one has been and still is entirely successful ; while the other has just required to be re established, after failing through bad seasons and bad management. The Ralahine experiment was a remarkable success, in the face of extraordinary obstacles, until the failure of the landlord sud- denly put an end to it. Mr. Lawson's fantastic, though well- intended attempt is well recorded in that comedy of errors, Ten Years of Gentleman Farming. The fifth experiment was that made by Mr. Walter Morrison, at Brampton-Bryan,in Here- fordshire, which was also unsuccessful. Two successful schemes of industrial partnership in farming carried out in Germany are also described by our author, as well as some "Cow Clubs," and one Cow Club "spelt with an S." The last was success- fully established by Mr. Stubbs, though funds were so short that instead of buying cows, the co-operators invested in two sows, which appear to have justified the judgment of their selectors. We fear that the training of farm labourers has not been such as to fit them for successful co-operative production ; but the training that Mr. Stubbs would afford them by pro- viding them with plots of land, would be the very best to ensure the success of co-operative farming on a large scale in the future. We notice that Mr. Stubbs makes a special appeal to his fellow-clergymen who have glebes to follow his ex- cellent example, and considering the many complaints that have recently been published as to the losses of clergymen who have had to farm their own land, they might do worse, even from a pecuniary point of view, than let their glebes in allotments. But we hope that The Land and the Labourers will be read by all landowners, large and small, and that the forcible argu- ments and eloquent pleading of Mr. Stubbs will bear good fruit.
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