A PLEA. FOR THE PEASANT.* "MIGRATION," says Mr. Thomas Hardy,
"is humorously described as the tendency of the rural population towards large towns, being really the tendency of water to flow
• Land Roform, Occupying Ownership, Peasant Proprietary, and Rural Educa- tion. By the Eight Hon. Jesse Collings, ALP. With Illustrations. London : Longmaus and Co. Ms. 6d. net...1 uphill when forced by machinery." The object of Mr- Collings's book is the investigation of the working of that portion of the " machinery " which has been set up or has formerly existed in the country districts. This volume of close on five hundred pages resembles many recent works on rural England in its inconclusiveness. To Mr. Collings, of course, his book is not inconclusive at all. Pass his Land Purchase Bill and his Agricultural Education Bill, and carry through the little matter of Mr. Chamberlain's Fiscal proposals, and in our country. side, where now, it would appear, is the very winter of dis- content, we shall make glorious summer. As a whole, the book leaves a pathetic impression. There is a moving note in its dedication : "To the cherished memory of a noble peasant woman by the last survivor of her many children." The laboriously compiled accounts of peasant revolts from Wat Tyler to Joseph Arch, and of the growth of our land system, are sad reading in their turn; while grey indeed is the tale unfolded in such chapters as "Home Markets," "Our Food Supply in the Time of War," "Fiscal Policy and Agriculture," and "Depopulation of Rural England." But the most depressing thing of all must be the despair of the instructed reader over a book which, written by a business man of peasant stock and lifelong interest in his subject, ought to have been wholly authorita- tive, and yet throughout must be read with caution. The disquisitions on foreign trade we must be excused from dis- cussing at this time of day; but throughout the book there are statements on other than fiscal matters which are no more than assumptions. When Mr. Collings declares on an early page that "the old simplicity of our national life is dis- appearing before the attractions and temptations of a hollow and artificial society," he is merely repeating an opinion which has been expressed ever since mankind began to write. As to chap. 4, whatever may be done in the way of keeping people on the land, the establishment of a peasant proprietary, in the large sense indicated by comparisons with Continentql conditions, is surely a chimera. Coming to the details of the argument, it would be of interest to know what proportion of the 230,000 worth of imported honey mentioned by the author is used, not at the breakfast-table, but by manufacturers, and what proportion of the common quality, alone suitable for their purposes, our rural districts could find a profit in pro- ducing. Mr. Collings actually makes it a grievance that we cannot export grapes to France ! - When he speaks of Guernsey tomatoes, he seems to overlook, again, the advantage in duration of sunshine which certain parts of Europe enjoy. In regard to butter and cheese, Mr. Collings's readers would do well to bear in mind the admission of no less an authority than the Field the other week that "home resources are absolutely incapable of supplying the needs of the nation in respect to dairy produce," and that "British farmers act wisely in electing to cater for the new milk market, and to allow the foreigner and Colonial to supply the butter and cheese, which are not only more intricate to produce, but yield a smaller profit upon the milk used." It is hardly surprising to find that there duly figure in the tables in this book those £6,700,000 worth of foreign eggs—largely bought in the Balkan States, Egypt. and Morocco, we believe, at heaven knows what trifle the dozen—and the 21,000,000 worth of foreign poultry,—mainly, we understand, low-grade foreign birds for consumption in the thousands of households which will have "chicken" without being prepared to pay the prices at which birds can be profitably marketed in this country. Mr. Collings and other politicians dealing with this particular subject are clearly unaware that, in spite of the increase of our population, there has been a falling off for some time past in the importation of good-quality eggs and poultry. When Mr. Collings goes on to say that "in poultry-farming—an occupation suitable for women— there is almost an unbounded scope," he appears once more recklessly to lay himself open to the strictures of experts.
In spite of these criticisms, we hope Land Reform, may be read. The case for promoting the ownership of land by the men able to derive from it the utmost economic advantage has seldom been more forcefully or touchingly pleaded than in its pages. Is it generally realised that "the owners of the great bulk of the land of Great Britain could be comfortably seated in the Albert Hall"?
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