§ Order for Second Reading read.
§ MR. JESSE COLLINGS (Birmingham, Bordesley),in rising to move that the Bill be now read a second time, said: I think that all hon. Members of this House will admit the importance of the subject with which it deals. It will not, therefore, be necessary for me to delay the House for any lengthened period in order to put forward the case for the Bill; and it is further unnecessary because this question, dither in the form of a Bill or of a Resolution, has been before the House every year since I had the honour of a seat in Parliament. For the last three or four years the Bill has been before the House under the head of Allotments and Small Holdings Bill; this year it is brought forward as a Small Holdings Bill with the allotments portion dropped in consequence of the Act which was passed last year by Her Majesty's Government. That Act, I am happy to know, in spite of its defects, is producing a considerable effect in supplying allotments in various parts of England. Now, Sir, small holdings differ from allotments in 448 this respect—that allotments are for labourers and others who have regular occupations, and are intended to supplement the earnings of the labourer and to occupy his spare time; whereas small holdings have for their object, according to their size, either the full occupation of the labourer or whoever holds them, or the partial occupation of any person who has another business to attend to which occupies only a portion of his time. The question I desire to bring before the House is very important, both in its social and economic aspects; and I hope, looking at the aim of the Bill, to hoar no extravagant talk about cutting up the country into small lots, destroying all the large farms, and causing the country to be covered over with small patches. I trust that I may hear no arguments of that kind against this proposal. The fact is that the number of men who would be in the position to avail themselves of the facilities contemplated by this Bill will be limited. Besides the pick of our agricultural labourers who would be in a position to avail themselves of it, there is a certain class in our village population who have business of another character, but whose time is not fully occupied, and to them such facilities as the Bill proposes to afford would be a great boon. Some of these small tradesmen in the villages have little or nothing to do except on market days—I refer to persons in the position of hucksters, dealers, masons, cattle dealers, hay-tyers, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, pig dealers, and others whom I need not enumerate to hon. Members who are acquainted with rural life. All these men would make a very good class of cultivators, and would be able to get possession of a plot of land or a small holding of such a size as he might require for the purpose of cultivating it in connection with the business with which his time would be otherwise occupied. I think I cannot illustrate my argument better than by referring to the estate of Lord Tollemache, who has 40 small farms averaging 32 acres each, 50 averaging nine acres each, and 32 holdings averaging three acres each. There are more than 300 labourers holding about 300 acres of land, and, of course, the occupiers of these small holdings have other occupations such as I have enumerated. 449 They do exceedingly well with their small holdings and are able to pay their rents. Besides this, we have to deal with the labourers in the rural districts who have no prospect before them for the future, except it be to keep a shop, to go into the towns, or to keep a public-house. The consequence is that social condition is much deteriorated. If, however, the agricultural labourer were assured by the Legislature of the facilities which this Bill proposes to give to him, and with examples before him could see that if he were to save a little money he would be able to obtain a plot of land for cultivation, every inducement would be given to him to remain in the district to which he belonged. Moreover, he would be induced to defer his marriage, and, instead of taking a wife at the early age of 20 or 21, which he does now, because he knows that he is as well off at that ago as he is likely to be when he reaches 30 or 31, he would wait until a better prospect was opened out to him in the course of a few years. That is invariably the case on the continent. The labourers there, in the first few years of adult life, spend their time in saving money for an object which is always present to them, and affords them the greatest encouragement to practice thrift. Unfortunately in this country at the present moment the agricultural labourer has as good a prospect at 20 years of age as he has at 40. Then, again, there is a great deal of talk at the present moment upon the question with regard to which the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council gave a notice just now—namely, technical education. That question is closely connected with the provisions of this Bill. In the towns there is a direct profit attached to the acquisition of technical education, because it enables a workman to earn larger wages and get on in the world. But there is no use in giving this kind of instruction to the labourer, because, however skilled he might be, he has no prospect of getting more than 148s. or 15s. a-week, and even less. Therefore, if this technical education is to be of any use, it is necessary to have some supplementary provision in shape of the means by which the education is to be applied and rendered useful. The consequence of this state of things is that the children and young 450 men in the rural districts are now taught that their great object in life is to get away from the country, and we see that the oldest, largest, and the most honourable industry in the world—an industry for which all have a natural liking—is becoming a mark of degradation in the eyes of our village youths, who are taught that it is a thing to get away from as soon as they can. Only yesterday morning I received a letter from a man which I will quote to the House, because I know him to be a man from the rural districts who is now a workman in a town. He writes—
I, as a poor boy, from the earliest time I remember, was always led to believe that my only hope was in going away. I feel that everyone who has left the country in the past has felt the same. I, for myself, may say that although I am doing fairly well as a workman, I would gladly return if there was any prospect of living. I have no doubt there are many others in the same position.It is a fact, as everyone knows, that the education given in the country schools favours the idea that the land is nothing to these children in the future. Therefore, we want two things which, in my opinion, would change gradually but surely the entire condition of the country—namely, to give an industrial training to the rural labourers, and, secondly, to give legislative facilities for obtaining land, so that they may turn their knowledge to account. In advocating this I am advocating no new thing. We see it done on the continent, in almost every country in Europe. In some form or other the same principle is always involved for which I am now contending, and if it could be brought about here there would be an open career for our rural population. What is the social result of our present position? To understand the question thoroughly it is necessary for the man to have spent his life in close connection with the rural districts, and also to have a clear knowledge of the present condition of the large towns. Any man who has had these two experiences will, if he be a sincere politician, regard the social condition, which is the result of our position, as one of the gravest questions which can occupy the mind of our statesmen. If we look at the census returns of 1881, we shall find the total increase of the population, for the decade from 1871 to 1881, was 14⅓ per cent in 451 England and Wales, being larger than any other decade since 1831–1841, when it was 14½ per cent. But if we turn to the rural districts, we find an absolute decrease of 15.9 per cent, instead of an increase of 14½ per cent. If we take the 20 years from 1861 to 1881, there has been a decrease among the agricultural classes of no less than 31.2 per cent, or nearly one third of the entire agricultural population. If we go farther, and take particulars, we shall find that there is not a single county in which there has not been a decrease, except in those parts of the country which happen to possess a large town. Take Wiltshire for instance. Out of 17 registrars' districts, all have decreased considerably with the exception of three. In Dorsetshire, every district has decreased except two, those two being Poole and Weymouth, the decrease having been up to 11 per cent. In Devonshire, out of 20 registrars' districts, everyone has decreased with the exception of eight, those eight being large towns such as Torquay, Exeter, and Plymouth, or the neighbourhood of large towns. The decrease there has been up to 11 per cent. The sub-district of Honiton decreased nine per cent, and one in 11½ per cent were paupers. In Cornwall the decrease was as high as 14 per cent, but it arose from other causes besides agricultural depression. Every district declined with the exception of Falmouth. In Somersetshire, every district declined except in five, including Taunton, Bath and neighbourhood, and Bedminster. In Herefordshire, every district with the exception of Hereford itself. In Buckinghamshire every district decreased with the exception of Eton and Wycombe. In Huntingdonshire every district decreased. In Bedfordshire every district decreased, with the exception of Bedford and Luton. In Brecknockshire and in Radnorshire, in Wales, every district decreased, and in Suffolk every district decreased except five; some as much as 12½ per cent. It is only a question of physique, of keeping up the power of animal endurance, of health; in other words, of the actual fibre of the human being. This is a most important measure that such a state of things should incite such a feeling of alarm, and when these men go away, according to the census returns, they do not emigrate. The emigration is so small 452 that it is not worth taking into account. They go into the larger towns, the centre of manufacturing industry. Years ago, when the manufacturing industry was advancing by leaps and bounds, all these men were absorbed, but the powers of absorption of the large towns have reached their limits, if, indeed, they have not overstepped dangerously the limit to which they can go with safety. What we have to consider is where this is to stop. Every 10 years shows an enormous increase in our large towns. To take London, for instance. Every few years there is an addition to London of a town with a population as large as that of Birmingham, and it is dangerous to put a population the size of Birmingham into London every few years, nearly all of them coming from the country, unless we can find the means of subsistence for them. We all know that there is a social question being raised that will tax the ingenuity of the cleverest statesman. It is said that these men do better in the towns—that each individual goes from 9s. or 10s., into the towns where he earns 15s. or 20s., but in his turn he displaces another, and at the bottom of the list we shall find a broken man or a pauper. As to the condition of our streets, it is distinctly connected with the influx of rural paupers into the towns. I think, therefore, it will be granted that there is a great social question connected with the subject. Coming next to the economical question, I maintain that it is one which affects the working classes of our towns, and factories and mines and quarries more than any other. The workmen may have their rules and regulations, their strikes and Trade Unions, but as long as there is a steady influx of competing labourers, so long will employment be comparatively secured, and wages kept down. The operation is two-fold—the labourer who leaves the land ceases to produce wealth to be spread over the industrial centres, and he transfers himself to those industrial centres, increasing the supply, while, at the same time, he is lessening the demand. Every scheme for finding work for the unemployed—such as the laying out of pleasure gardens, and so forth—although deserving of the highest praise, are a mere scratch on the surface, so long as we have ready to our hands a great 453 field of employment upon the land itself, where three men could be profitably employed, instead of the one man who is employed at the present time. We are, however, met with the argument of prices—that prices have gone down, and that they are such as make employment on the land unprofitable—[Cries of "Hear, hear!"] Hon. Members say "Hear, hear!" It is said that corn cannot be grown at a profit. I have here evidence which I have received from some of the small owners of land, whose testimony I know to be good; and if I weary the House with some of that evidence from that class of men, I do so because I think it will somewhat startle hon. Members. I put aside the evidence in regard to the corn and cereals, and I will confine my observations to articles upon which the price has not gone down. Take the article of butter. In 1886, 77,000,000 lbs. of butter were imported, of the value of £8,000,000; cheese, 87,000,000 lbs., at a cost of £4,000,000; while the produce at home was double that amount. Eggs, 1,000,000,000, at a cost of £2,750,000. Thus every day that we live we import 2,750,000 eggs of the aggregate value annually of nearly £3,000,000. We import poultry at the cost of £250,000; and of potatoes £750,000; onions, £500,000; apples, £1,000,000; bacon and hams, £8,000,000. The articles thus imported, without enumerating anything further, amount to £25,000,000. And no one can say that in regard to those articles, the prices have not gone up enormously during the last 20 years. An hon. Member opposite shakes his head; but in my early days butter was sold for 6½d. a pound, a chicken for ls. 2d., and eggs at 30 and 40 for 1s. Cheese was equally low; and, if my memory serves me rightly, barley was under 20s. a-quarter. Those prices were nut complained of then. However, I leave out grain, and only take the articles I have already enumerated, for the importation of which we paid in 1886 £25,000,000. If it were necessary, I could enumerate other articles, which would increase the cost of importation to £50,000,000, without touching meal or grain. I want to see why we did not produce many of the things which, as a country, we are preeminently fitted to produce. The fact of low prices, which hon. Gentlemen urge as a reason, seems to me to be 454 really a positive advantage in producing these things. The cottager can feed his pig much better during the time of low prices than he can when the price of feeding is higher. In fact, there is no sufficient answer to be given as a reason when we have a good class of cultivators, and a proper method of cultivation, why we did not produce such articles ourselves, instead of importing them. Then, in favour of trade, the cry of the depression is raised. But, in my judgment, the agricultural industry is the only one in the country which has plenty of orders on hand at paying prices. They are all in a position of manufacturers doing a large trade, I grant, but who have orders in excess of what they can execute. There is plenty of material lying idle; there are labourers wanting work, and yet by some foolish arrangement connected with our system of agricultural plant, the orders which ought to be executed by us are allowed to pass by. I want to know what the reason is. We are ourselves paying £50,000,000 for the importation of certain articles of food. We are anxious about foreign markets, and are desirous of opening out now ones; but we seem to be careless about the best and largest market of all—namely, the Home market. Our newspapers and Chambers of Commerce go into fits of alarm if a few thousand pounds worth of steam-engines are brought over from Belgium; but they have nothing to say about the large quantity of food which we annually import. What is the remedy for all this? It is, to my mind, a silly waste of time to talk about Protection, or of putting a tax on articles in order that we may produce them better ourselves. I do not think it is necessary that I should waste the time of the House in discussing that question. What we want is so to arrange our system of agriculture which deals with those small industries so as to allow the small cultivators facilities to compete in price and also in quality with the small cultivators abroad. No doubt, it will take time to do; but if we set about the work now, there is just time to do it. If we go on as we are doing for many years longer, I am afraid our agricultural population will disappear, and that we shall look for our good old agriculturists in vain. [Cries of "Hear, hear!"] Yes; but there is time to stop it, if we set 455 about the work now. We know that the large farmers are in a bad way; but men with a few acres of land, who are growing wheat and cereals, and tilling their holdings in the fashion of large farmers, find they, also, do not succeed. The fact is that the peasant proprietors of England are—as was described not long ago by Lavelaye, one of the Belgian economists—pursuing a lost art in England. In fact, close personal care and labour are rarely bestowed upon the cultivation of the land by anybody unless he has a piece of land which he can call his own. The great Mr. Jenkins, in his valuable Reports, was generally opposed to small holdings; but there was enough in the information contained in the Reports of that Gentleman to show that he was obliged to give unwilling testimony to the character of the small holders abroad. I remember that he startled the large farmers of England by telling them that in Denmark, which is competing so strongly with us in regard to butter, the most successful dairy farms were without a single acre of permanent pasture around them. The later evidence of the Royal Commission goes in strongly for education in the smaller branches of industry. Remarks have been made as to the poverty of the small proprietors abroad. No doubt, they appear to be wretchedly poor when labouring in the fields; but follow them into their own homes, and a very different state of things will be found. They have good furniture, ornaments, and clothes; and altogether there is an indescribable sense of property, position, and comfort about them which must be witnessed in order to be appreciated. Probably there may be among them, as there are among every other class, failures; but it may be taken that, as a rule, the state of things I have described exists. We are told that the remedy is to be found alone in free trade in land. My opinion is hardly in favour of reforms which are likely to aggravate in some cases the existing state of things and prevent the bringing about of a new and better state of things. There is no use in creating more land-holders. What we want is to create new cultivators. If we are to have landlords I would rather that they should be rich than impecunious persons who would wring all the rent out of a man they could. We must raise a 456 new class of cultivators from the class of people I have been describing. We have the finest material any nation could wish for this purpose. We have industrious and law-abiding men, who under fair circumstances would be enterprizing and successful, but they have no money. That is the great drawback, and one that it is of national and certainly of great social interest for us to overcome. We should not be doing anything remarkable in setting about that task. As I said before, there is not a nation in Europe that has not been obliged to help this class of its population on some principle or other, although it may be different in form from that for which I am contending. We have ourselves done it in Ireland, perhaps to an extent beyond that of any other country. We have the material, and the whole question is whether we will turn it to account. It is useless to preach to a farmer about wearing a black coat. He must go into minute cultivation personally. We have heard a great deal of noise on this subject, and many theories have been put forward. Platforms have rung again about the pick of the land, but the pick of the land means men who are ready to undergo hard work and privation to persevere. It also means home interests, something to the good and the pleasure and satisfaction which attends the cultivation of the soil, and which does not belong to any other industry. Now, in order to remedy this state of things I venture to bring forward again the present measure. Its object is, and I have no doubt whatever its effect may be, that it will raise the question I have referred to, and seeing that the Unionist Government have made one right step last year in this direction, and have shown that in this and other matters they are capable of appreciating the importance of the subject, I hope they will support the Bill.
§ THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (Sir WILLIAM HART DYKE) (Kent, Dartford)was understood to say that the Government had already dealt with one branch of the subject.
§ MR. JESSE COLLINGSThe subject with which this Bill deals is another subject altogether.
§ SIR WILLIAM HART DYKEWe classify the two subjects.
§ MR. JESSE COLLINGSI do not accept the classification. What I say is 457 that they are two distinct branches of absolutely the same question. The object of this Bill is to enable the Local Authorities to acquire land for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of the Bill, and the method of acquiring it is to be practically the same as that for which provision was made in the Bill of last year. Having acquired the land, the disposition of it becomes an important matter. The Local Authority may sell to any one person a small holding on certain conditions, and may advance three-fourths of the purchase money. The purchaser is to provide one-fourth of the purchase money on the completion of the purchase, and the remainder is always to remain unpaid, and is to be a first charge upon the small holding. The interest on this unpaid balance, or quit rent, or rent charge, or mortgage, is 1 per cent, or such other percentage as may be agreed upon, over and above that which the Local Authority paid to the Treasury at the date of advance. By that means the bonâ fides of the holder will be tested, and he would have a personal stake in the matter. This interest, if put aside as a sinking fund, after having paid expenses, would, in a limited number of years, cancel the debt to the Treasury, and the Local Authority would henceforth be the perpetual receiver of well secured ground rents to the extent of about one-third of the percentage of the balance remaining unpaid. There is also a margin of further security in the 25 per cent of the purchase money provided by the purchaser, and added to this there is the yearly increase in the value of the holding which cultivating ownership almost invariably produces. The security is sufficiently good to take away any suggestion of ultimate loss. But Local Authorities, after the purchase is concluded, will have no trouble or responsibility as to the details of management, but will simply be collectors, and will secure their rents in precisely the same manner as the rates are collected; and, seeing that the claim of the Local Authority will be a first charge, no fear as to loss need be entertained. By conferring the quasi-ownership only on the small owner, subletting, sub-division, excessive mortgage, and other drawbacks connected with the small cultivators' system on the continent would be avoided. Therefore, I claim for the Bill that by means of its 458 provisions there would be a large increase in the amount of labour employed on the land, and indirectly the manufacturing interests of the country would receive benefit also. Certainly, it would provide and open out a career for the rural population who had now nothing to do but to migrate to the large towns. There is one clause contained in the Bill by which any Local Authority may, subject to certain conditions, make loans to the owners of small holdings for buildings, or for improvements, such loans and all interest upon them to be repaid within a certain period, in no case extending over 35 years from the making of the loan. These advances are to be under different conditions from those made for the acquisition of the holding, seeing that the whole sum would have to be paid back in annual payments. What greater facilities could be given to a young man just starting in life than to see his way to the acquisition of a holding and a dwelling-house of his own? It would supply that which does not exist at the present moment, and that is the element of hope at the commencement of a man's life. I would ask the House not to discard too hastily the suggestion that three-fourths of the purchase could always remain as a permanent charge upon the holding. I want the House to look carefully into the matter, because, in my view, this is a most valuable provision. My object in making the suggestion is to enable the owner to put as much capital as he possibly can upon the land. If he were to buy the holding out altogether the little capital he possessed would be gone, and the same would be the case if he were to pay the whole sum of instalments. He would himself be crippled, and all his capital taken up in repaying the advance, and he would be unable to pay the amount which was necessary upon the land in the way of stock, work, and manure, or, in other words, he would have parted with the capital required for cultivating the farm in addition to a man's labour, which, after all, is the most valuable portion of his capital. It would be paid to the landlord instead of being distributed on the farm. Besides this, where you could find one man who could have any hope of raising sufficient money to buy a holding out and out, and stock it, you would be able to find three 459 or four or half-a-dozen able to pay one-fourth, and still retain sufficient to enable them to stock and work it. Besides this, there is a greater reason than all. The inquiries I made in France and on the Continent generally with respect of peasant proprietors, resulted in this—that there is one great cause of failure, and that is the excessive mortgages on plot divisions of the land. In bad times, when there may be a temporary pinch, it is easy to be tempted to borrow on the security of the land, and these poor peasants having commenced the practice at once place themselves under the tyranny compared with which the practices of the harshest landlord are simply mercy. I therefore take it for granted that means will be taken to prevent the money-lender, who will be lying in wait to take advantage of these peasant proprietors on the first opportunity, in order to advance money to the small holder, from taking advantage of the necessity of these poor men. Unless something of that kind were done, we might as well give up at once all idea of benefiting the agricultural labourer, because he would simply have to go through a slow and painful process of extinction. Under the provisions of the Bill the proprietor would offer no temptation to the money-lender, inasmuch as he would not have the power to part with the land. He is to advance one-fourth of the purchase money. Suppose the value of the holding is £100, he advances £25, and the Local Authority advances the remaining £75, on which, say, he pays 4 per cent. In that case, he is of no use to the money-lender, and offers no temptation to him. He could only lend up to the value of the £25, and in no case could he fall in any way on the man to whom he lent it, and he would have no legal means of recovering the money. I received evidence in support of my proposals from persons with whom I am acquainted which shows clearly that a large number of people would remain on the land, and that others would go back to it if facilities of this kind were offered. I would ask hon. Members to look at the Consular Reports which have been lately issued, and which contain most interesting information on this subject. I quite grant that agricultural depression has been general; but in every one of these Reports there is sufficient evidence to 460 show the comparatively prosperous condition of the cultivators of the kind I am speaking of. If I am not wearying the House, I should like to read a passage or two from these Consular Reports. I will take, first, Consular Re-port No. 220, 1887, for the year 1886, on the trade and agriculture of Wurtemburg—
As matters now stand, the normal, natural, and equal development of agriculture is at a standstill. Abundant harvests hate been unable to effect any appreciable improvement. Tenants and encumbered proprietors find the situation even more distressing. The condition of the small farmer, on the other hand, is proportionately better. He tills his fields with the aid of his family, and is but little affected by the depreciation of the price of the crops, as he supplies the wants of his household from his own hand, and makes good his need in cash by the sale of a pig or a beast. On estates of larger dimensions, both the sale-value and rental of land has fallen; in the case of the latter, in many instances, as much as 25 per cent. In the matter of small allotments, on the other hand, with the exception of those situated at an inconvenient distance, or otherwise hampered, the fall in value has not been experienced, many such small lots fetching extraordinary prices.Our Consular Agent in Sweden says—The butter import trade has been steadily on the decline for several years. This has been caused by the marked progress made in Swedish dairy farming, which has increased the home supply and opened up a considerable and rising export with foreign countries.A Report from the Consular General of Havre, in France, for 1886, says—The crops, on the whole, throughout the district were not good, and farmers are complaining, like our own, of the hardness of the times; but I would again, as I did last year, draw attention to the fact that Mr. Vice Consul Lethbridge shows in his Report that from the port of Honfleur, eggs, butter, poultry, fruit, and cheese were exported to England last-year to a total value of—1,152,140. This astonishing fact induces two reflections—first, wonder that our own agriculturists do not supply much of this themselves; and, secondly, what would become of the farming interests in a district of which Honfleur is the outlet were this trade, by any circumstances, put a stop to?Thus, according to this Report, we are keeping the people of these districts instead of keeping our people at home. I will not detain the House much longer. I have been contending for a principle—that is, that we should give facilities to persons who without facilities cannot get upon the land, and that we should give them facilities for acquiring holdings by means of which they might produce these articles. There 461 would then be more capital, recognizing labour as capital, expended upon the land. It must be remembered that labour is the most valuable part of capital; that the small holder and his family, by their work, put what is probably equivalent to £2 per week upon the land, and that, though there may be failure if the labour has been employed and paid for by the farmer, it makes all the difference if it is supplied without payment by the man and his family, who will be content with small results when those results are brought about by the efforts of himself and his family. I maintain, further, that there would be more people employed on the land, for, although next t Belgium, we are the most thickly-populated country in Europe, yet, if we take the rural districts alone, we shall find that they are very thinly-populated. In the next case, the larger the amount of cultivation and of production, the greater the increase in the demand for our manufactures; and not only so, but the consequential saving in the amount of poor rates, charities, and so forth. The time is very favourable for trying an experiment in the direction I have indicated. The social and political value of land in this country has largely diminished; and, what is more important still, the profits upon it have largely disappeared, and its marketable value greatly deteriorated. There is a large quantity of vacant land in the country. Almost in every district there is a good deal in the hands of the landowner, who is cultivating the land at a loss, as he finds out to his cost at the end of the year. I am, therefore, surprised that the landlords, and everybody else, did not see the advantage of increasing the usefulness of the class in whose interests I have brought forward this Bill. Have hon. Members—knowing that the marketable value of land has much deteriorated in this country—seen the prices at which land is selling in France and Belgium, notwithstanding the depressed times in which we are living? The price in the countries I have mentioned is enormous compared with what landed property goes begging for here. It is absurd to cry out for Fair Trade, and all such nonsense, when we are, by our simple neglect, allowing from £25,000,000 to £30,000,000 of produce to be sent over here by foreigners 462 which we could easily produce for ourselves. If we made greater use of the land, prices would go up legitimately; and if we can do that by legislative action, no one will be more thankful than myself. I thank the House for the patient manner in which it has listened to me. I know that the work of the Session is very heavy, and that the time of the Government is so fully occupied that it would be almost impossible for them to get through Parliament a Bill of this national importance—for I am not going to minimize its importance—during the present Session. But what I ask them to do is that they should take the matter into their own hands. It is too large a question to be undertaken by any private Member, and I have no desire that it should be made merely the subject of platform speeches. I want something done by anybody—I do not care who it may be—in this direction. I hold that it is sound political economy, and will tend to secure the safety of the nation, to make proper provision for the welfare of the country population. We have a duty to discharge to that population, setting aside altogether any question of political economy, or the realization of wealth. Above all, I trust that Her Majesty's Government will not meet this proposal with a mere non possumus, but that they will state that they recognize its importance, and that, as soon as possible, it will receive at their hands a fair and serious consideration. I beg to move the second reading of the Bill.
§ MR. BROADHURST (Nottingham, W.)said, he desired to say a few words on this Bill, having been associated with his hon. Friend the Member for the Bordesley Division of Birmingham (Mr. Jesse Collings) in the consideration of the subject from the very inception of the Bill. He must say he was disappointed with the concluding part of the remarks of the hon. Member, as the hon. Member had seemed to make some apology for his measure, offering an invitation to the Government to say generally that they agreed with the principle of the proposal without pledging themselves to a period of time or course of action to give effect to it. His hon. Friend had declared that that was the most urgent question that existed in connection with agriculture. Surely then, when agri- 463 culture—when labour and industry—was so depressed in our great towns and rural districts, this of all times was the time which should be chosen for pressing the matter home, and for declaring that it was absolutely urgent, and for demanding of the Government that they should, if necessary, suspend proceedings with regard to some of their measures not of such national importance as that now before the House, in order to give place to the consideration of this subject. He (Mr. Broadhurst) rose to second the proposal fur the second reading of the Bill, and to recommend that it should be proceeded with at once and passed this Session, and should not be postponed to some time more convenient to the Government—that it should not be put off to suit any political exigency of the time. He should like to point out to the House that for the first time in its history, the Bill to-day appeared upon the Order Paper without a single Notice of opposition to it. He must congratulate his hon. Friend the Member for the Bordesley Division of Birmingham on having so speedily converted hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House. Time was, and not very long back, when the Notice Paper was almost crowded with Notices from hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House to the effect that the Bill be read a second time that day six months. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Sleaford Division of Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) used to know something about the position of the Bill. He was a leader in the denunciation of what he used to call the fallacies of the hon. Member for the Bordesley Division of Birmingham, who, he (Mr. Chaplin) declared, proposed a measure upon a subject of which he was entirely ignorant. He (Mr. Broadhurst) was glad that a closer association between the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Sleaford Division and his hon. Friend the Member for the Bordesley Division of Birmingham had taught the right hon. Gentleman that the hon. Member was not so ignorant on these subjects, but that he knew some little about them.
§ MR. CHAPLIN (Lincolnshire, Sleaford)Will the hon. Member permit me to say that I never made any such assertion as that the hon. Member for the Bordesley Division of Birmingham 464 was ignorant upon this question. On the contrary, I should think he knows as more or more about it than anyone in the House.
§ MR. BROADHURSTYes; but the right hon. Gentleman, as they all knew, was a master in the art of phrases. The scathing the right hon. Gentleman used to employ against the hon. Member was even stronger and much more effective in the direction indicated than the words he (Mr. Broadhurst) had actually made use of, and meant the same thing. He thought the Government might very well shorten the debate on this subject this evening, if some one representing them would rise early and give the House their opinion upon the measure under discussion. He thought he might say, if he was not taking too great a liberty with hon. and right hon. Gentlemen near him, that they on that (the Opposition) side of the House, accepted the Bill unanimously. Of course, they did not pledge themselves to any of the details of the measure. His hon. Friend would never expect that. But they pledged themselves to the main principle of the Bill, and were prepared to vote it an urgent measure, and one which should be proceeded with at once. He apprehended that there was no hon. Member on the opposite side prepared to give strong opposition to the measure.
§ MR. AMBROSE (Middlesex, Harrow)Certainly there is.
§ MR. BROADHURSTThe hon. and learned Gentleman opposite, one would think, would almost come within the category in which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Sleaford Division of Lincolnshire regarded his hon. Friend the Member for the Bordesley Division of Birmingham as having a place—that is, as hardly renowned for his knowledge of this subject. ["Oh, oh!"] Well, he was not aware that the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Mr. Ambrose) was renowned for his knowledge of the subject of small holdings and the condition of the agricultural labourers of the country.
§ MR. AMBROSEI did not profess to have any practical knowledge on the subject. I simply answered the challenge of the hon. Member as to there being no one on this side of the House prepared to offer a strenuous opposition to the Bill. It may be that I have no practical knowledge of the subject, and 465 yet I may be quite capable of giving a strenuous opposition to the measure.
§ MR. BROADHURSTsaid, that the hon. and learned Gentleman had always suffered more from ignorance than want of knowledge. Now, he apprehended that the Government was prepared, like the Opposition, to accept the principles of the Bill without pledging themselves to all the details of it. If that were so, he saw no reason why the debate should not be very short, and that they might proceed with one or two measures of great importance that immediately followed this on the Order Paper. Might he, for one moment, say that one of the details—or rather, as it was not in the Bill now, he would put it in this way—one of the omissions from the Bill this year was a very striking one. The hon. Member had omitted the allotments part of the original scheme, and he (Mr. Broadhurst) thought his hon. Friend was scarcely well advised in making that omission. The allotment question was one which was as important and necessary to deal with to-day as it was almost before the Act of last Session. The Act of last Session did not meet the requirements of the rural population with regard to allotments, and he had been rather surprised to hear the hon. Member, in moving the second reading of the present Bill, say that he had evidence that the Act of last year was a great success.
§ MR. JESSE COLLINGSAbundant evidence.
§ MR. BROADHURSTYes, the hon. Member said "abundant evidence"; but he (Mr. Broadhurst) thought they could, on the other side, produce abundant evidence to show that the Act had very essentially failed in attaining the object which the allotments scheme originally had in view. The hon. Member for the Bordesley Division of Birmingham, he knew, had passed through a time of great excitement this last year or two, and had been pressed most severely in political matters with political difficulties and problems. ["No, no!"] Yes; that was so, unquestionably. The hon. Member who interrupted him was very energetic in his spirit of criticism; but might he (Mr. Broadhurst) remind him of the fact that the Royal Commission on the Housing of the Poor had spent a great deal of time on the consideration of this very subject. That 466 Commission, at the instance of his hon. Friend the Member for the Bordesley Division of Birmingham, had stated that what was necessary in regard to allotments was that allotments up to half an acre should be attached to each cottage. It was perfectly well known that an allotment of a quarter of an acre in area so situated was of more value to a labourer than half an acre a mile away from his cottage.
MR. DEPUTY SPEAKERI must point out to the hon. Member that he is very much enlarging on the subject of the Small Holdings Bill by entering upon the subject he is now discussing.
§ MR. BROADHURSTsaid, he was obliged to Mr. Deputy Speaker for reminding him of the fact; but he had been led into this, very unwisely no doubt, by the omission of the hon. Gentleman the Member for the Bordesley Division of Birmingham to include allotments in his proposal. That was one of the misfortunes of the present Bill; but under the kind reminder of Mr. Deputy Speaker, he would not further pursue that part of the subject. On the subject of small holdings, however, he was not quite in accord with his hon. Friend. If he had understood the hon. Member correctly, he had declared that he was not looking forward to the complete ownership of these small holdings by the occupiers as much as to the cultivator having a constant and perpetual tendency——
§ MR. JESSE COLLINGSTo absolute ownership.
§ MR. BROADHURSTYes, to absolute ownership. He was bound to say that he thought if they went to the root of the evil of the present system, they would find the best remedy in making the cultivator the absolute owner of the allotment which he cultivated.
§ MR. JESSE COLLINGSThe Bill would do so.
§ MR. BROADHURSTsaid, the best means of obtaining satisfactory results from the cultivation of the soil was by the soil being in the absolute possession of the cultivator. The cultivator should have the whole interest in the property, and there was no reason why the occupiers of small holdings should not become owners of the fee simple. He thought they must direct their attention when they got into Committee upon this Bill—if they got into Committee on it 467 this Session—to that part of the subject. Many hon. Members thought that means might be found to help small cultivators to secure the ownership of their land on the same principle that labourers and artizans were enabled to obtain the ownership of their cottages—that was to say, through the assistance of Building Societies. That was the system proposed by the late Mr. Fergus O'Connor, and though there were great faults and errors of judgment in the scheme of Mr. Fergus O'Connor 50 years back, yet it had in it the elements of a successful and desirable scheme. There were not wanting to-day evidences—and the hon. Member for the Bordesley Division of Birmingham knew that very well—that good fruit had resulted from the effort of Mr. Fergus O'Connor 50 years ago. They had it in evidence, and his hon. Friend would remember that evidence perfectly well, that in one or two cases the small owners of to-day had been helped to their property under the system proposed and partly carried through by Mr. Fergus O'Connor; and where they saw the ownership going with the cultivation there they saw the very best results in agriculture. ["No, no!"] Yes; where the small holders owned their land, there they saw the most it was possible to obtain got from the land. Well, he had a letter which he had received from one of the great agricultural branches, a letter sent to him to refresh his memory as to a case of a very small holder indeed. The case was that of a man in possession as owner of one acre of land; out of that one acre of land this man and his family extracted a profit of £30 a-year.
§ MR. BROADHURSTsaid, it was within 18 miles of the nearest market town, and within five miles of the nearest railway station.
§ MR. BROADHURSTIn Norfolk. He knew the labourer perfectly well. He was a Norfolk man who had migrated North, and worked in the mines with the hon. Member for Morpeth (Mr. Burt) and another hon. Member.
§ MR. BROADHURSTsaid, the man cultivated fruit and vegetables. He also grew pigs and a few poultry. It was perfectly well known, and hon. 468 Members would admit it in the House as they did out of it, that the growth of pigs was one of the most fruitful sources of profit to agriculturists. There was an evidence of some little want of information on these subjects on the part of the hon. Member opposite. Here was a man the absolute owner of a piece of land an acre in extent, 18 miles from a town, and four or five miles away from any railway station, earning £30 a-year out of his land, and performing skilful work for the farmers in the neighbourhood which added, perhaps, another £30 a-year to his earnings. There was this man, a most desirable citizen, maintaining himself in independence and respectability, bringing up his family independent of all parish relief, he and his being considerable customers, indeed, the best class of customers which manufacturers could have at their doors. This man had told him (Mr. Broadhurst) that if he could obtain an additional acre—that was to say, to make his holding two acres in extent, he could make the land bring him in from £65 to £70 a-year, but that he could not obtain that additional acre except at such a ruinous rent that it was impossible for him to enter into the contract, and here came in the secret of the want of success in some quarters of the whole system of small holdings. The holders were considerably handicapped, because the rent, rates, and other charges imposed upon them were in such enormous disproportion to the charges imposed upon owners of 300, 400, or 500 acres of land. If the friends of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Sleaford Division of Lincolnshire were as wise as it was sometimes thought they were, they would long since have made such arrangements as would have rendered a Bill of the kind unnecessary. If the landowners of this country were only wise enough to foresee what must be the inevitable outcome of the present system, it would not be necessary for his hon. Friend to plead as eloquently as he had done that evening that Parliament should do by compulsion that which people ought voluntarily to have done from self interest and for self protection, to say nothing of the patriotic motive of a desire to see the people increase in prosperity all round the large estates of the country. Those sentiments, and these reasons, one would have thought, 469 should have led the large landed proprietors of the country to have endeavoured to cultivate in the minds of the rural population a desire to become the possessors of small holdings, and should have led them to give facilities for the acquisition by the peasantry of such holdings. The system of largo holdings had failed to some extent. At any rate, it had almost brought ruin upon many of the great houses and many of the great positions in the country. If large holdings had failed, instances had been pointed out, and could be pointed out in still greater numbers, where small holdings had succeeded. They had an evidence of it at their doors. There was not one of them, in whatever direction he might live, who would let his land in allotments at the same price as he would let it in larger quantities to large farmers.
§ COLONEL HAMBRO (Dorset, South)No, no!
§ MR. BROADHURSTThe whole of the evidence, the whole of our experience show it.
§ COLONEL HAMBROWhat evidence?
§ MR. BROADHURSTsaid, the evidence that Mr. Deputy Speaker had very properly intimated to him (Mr. Broadhurst) he must not refer to again. They would find evidence enough, if they would go to the Report of the Royal Commission, to bear out what he was saying. And he could speak furthermore from his own personal experience of this matter, because he happened to know something of this matter, having, as his hon. Friend the Member for the Bordesley Division of Birmingham had pointed out, been early associated with the land, and he trusted he might live to see the day when he might again have an opportunity of spending much of his time in a pleasurable and intellectual and in one of the most healthy avocations that anyone could undertake [Laughter.] Yes, he knew that many hon. Members laughed at anything intellectual. [Renewed laughter.] These gentlemen treated their labourers as though there were no intellect required in their work.
§ MR. BROADHURSTsaid, he did not for a moment accuse the hon. Member opposite of being neglectful of his labourers, or of being wanting in 470 thought for them; but his point was that they were treated, in far too many instances, as though no intellect were required in the work they had to do, whereas there was no industry so susceptible of intellectual treatment as that of agriculture. In every advance that was made, in every move that was attempted, in every hour's work that they did in connection with agriculture, the work was always the better for the application of the man's whole intellect to it. He was glad that, seemingly, the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Long), who knew something about these matters, approved of what he was saying, whilst some hon. Members took delight in laughing. He hoped that the Bill would not only be read a second time that day, but that the Committee stage would be fixed for an early period. He also trusted that the Government would not listen to his hon. Friend who moved the second reading, and believe that the subject was not so pressing as to require to be taken up during the present Session. He trusted that even at a moment's notice the House would be ready to read the Bill a second time, and that they would apply themselves with all their energy to carrying it successfully through Parliament during the present Session, subject, of course, to some Amendments in matters of detail in Committee. He had very great pleasure in seconding the Motion for the second reading of this most important Bill.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."(Mr. Jesse Collings.)
§ MR. GRAY (Essex, Maldon)said, he thought there had been a marked difference noticeable between the two speeches which had so interested the House. The one speech had been without a shadow of Party spirit, whereas the other had evidenced a great deal of that spirit. He greatly preferred the speech of the hon. Member for the Bordesley Division of Birmingham. [Ironical Cheers from the Opposition Benches.] Yes, and he not only preferred that speech, but he could give his reasons for doing so. He believed that there was thorough earnestness and conviction from the beginning to the end of that speech, and he hoped that whenever they talked about subjects of such interest to the 471 rural population as the question before the House, they would as much as possible always drop Party feeling, and try to thrash the question out in a business-like way. But although he (Mr. Gray) was as much interested in this question as the hon. Member for the Bordesley Division of Birmingham, he did not altogether agree with some of the views which the hon. Member had given expression to this afternoon. He was afraid the hon. Member would find if his Bill were passed into law, that there would not be the supply of labourers willing to take 10 or 20 acres of land which he seemed to imagine. It must be remembered that in order to enable a labourer to cultivate successfully 10 or 20 acres of land—in the Bill the limit was fixed at 40 acres; he would therefore take the mean and apply his argument to the case of a man desiring to cultivate 20 acres—he must have something like £200 of capital in hând for the purpose. Now, had they in this country labourers walking about in their thousands, each with £200 in his pocket to invest in that way? He was sorry to say that labourers of that kind were not to be found in Essex; but, supposing in other counties labourers were more fortunate than in Essex, his experience was that they would much rather, under existing circumstances, and in view of the present condition of agriculture, spend their money in taking small businesses, a small shop, and so on, than they would risk their capital on small holdings. The hon. Member for West Nottingham (Mr. Broadhurst) had said something which he evidently seemed to think would be quite crushing to them on that (the Ministerial) side of the House as to what a certain Mr. Fergus O'Connor had done in connection with small holdings. Now, 20 years ago, he (Mr. Gray) happened to know the small holdings in the neighbourhood of Red Marley and Staunton, in Worcestershire, which Mr. Fergus O'Connor started, and though, 20 years ago, the present great agricultural depression had not set in, these small holdings to which he referred were failures, and the hon. Member for the Evesham Division of Worcestershire (Sir Richard Temple) informed him that they were very much the same now as they were 20 years ago. He was afraid that when prices 472 were as bad as they were to-day, they would always find these small holdings getting into as bad a condition as these small farms at Red Marley and Staunton. Nearly everybody seemed to think that they knew something about agriculture—with the exception, perhaps, of his hon. and learned Friend on his right (Mr. Ambrose). Travelling in a railway train, for instance, they invariably saw people looking out of the window, regarding the condition of the country, and heard them advise the agriculturists as to what should be done with the land. They heard people say—"Oh, the wheat should be carted," or "The wheat should not be carted;" and not infrequently did it happen that the wheat referred to was barley. They, the agriculturists, were told that the reason they did not get on in agricultural business was that they had no enterprize—that they had not the same amount of enterprize as manufacturers. They were told that they should get rid of their old Conservative ideas of doing as their forefathers had done before them, and that if they adopted that spirit, they would get on, as the great woollen spinners and iron-masters had got on. Then, again, they were told that the possibility of succeeding in agriculture, whatever enterprize might actuate their movements, had gone. They were told that they must break up their machinery, stop their engines, and sell off, and let small capitalists and agricultural labourers cultivate the land. Well, before he could believe in the expediency of following that course, he thought they ought to have some practical experience as to the likelihood of the new system proving successful. The allotments question was a very different one to that of the small holdings. An allotment might be worked most successfully by a man who had a few spare hours in the evening; and no better employment could be found for the British villager than an hour or two per day spent in that way, or in the contemplation of his pigs, if the hon. Member opposite liked, but to ask a man to spend a few hours on an allotment in the evening was one thing, and to ask him to invest a capital of £200 upon a holding, and to endeavour to cultivate it with profit, at the present prices of agricultural produce, was another and a totally different 473 thing. He had but little experience in the drawing of Bills; but, in his humble opinion, there were several weak points in the drafting of the present measure, and the hon. Member for the Bordesley Division of Birmingham, he believed, himself admitted that perhaps some points in his Bill could be improved by alterations. Well, it appeared to him (Mr. Gray) that one of the weak points was this. He thought there was something unfair in it—and he was very much inclined to think that the hon. Member opposite would agree with him that unfairness, wherever they found it, was weakness. The Bill said that the Local Authorities should purchase land, if they thought proper, at such a price as would be taken if the owners were willing sellers. Now, he did not think that was fair. He wished everything to be tried which was reasonable and just on behalf of the agricultural labourer; but he certainly did not think it would be fair to pounce down upon the landlord and to say to him, "You shall part with a portion of your property, whether you like it or not, at such price as you would take if you were a willing seller." Supposing one of our manufacturers were told that he must dispose of his great business, however he liked it and wished to go on with it—that he must sell up in the interest of those whom he had been in the habit of employing, at such a price as he would have asked if he had been anxious to part with his business. What an outcry would there be if such a proposal as that were made, and yet there was not much difference between the two cases. He was sure the hon. Member for the Bordesley Division of Birmingham did not wish to be unfair. At the present time, if the Bill had become an Act of Parliament and it had been possible to find any authority willing to take upon itself the powers and responsibilities of the provisions of this measure—and he did not think such Local Authorities would be plentiful, at any rate during the next few years to come—and supposing that authority went to the landlord and said that he should sell his land at the price he would receive for it if he were a willing seller, he would get about £12 an acre for that which some few years ago was probably worth £40 an acre; and in saying that he had in his mind land in the locality 474 with which he was best acquainted. Was this common justice to the landlord? The door would be open to a great deal of jobbery. In the Bill it was provided that nothing should be set up in small holdings which should depreciate the value of property adjoining, but he was not quite sure whether in some cases it would not be the other way round. [An hon. MEMBER: How?] He was not sure that in case where there was only a very limited quantity of land of a certain description, the fact of its being taken up in small holdings would not increase the price of that which was left. The Bill in these respects would not work well, and it might lead to jobbery. The hon. Member who moved the second reading of the Bill said he would not take up the time of the House about the prices of agricultural produce. Well, he (Mr. Gray) was rather inclined to think that the prices of produce was the gist of the whole question.
§ MR. JESSE COLLINGSI am sure the hon. Member does not wish to misrepresent me. What I said was, that I would not take up the time of the House by quoting the prices of grain and cereals, but I went fully into the prices of other produce.
§ MR. GRAYsaid, that undoubtedly was the case. He, however, was not afraid to go into the prices of cereals, because, after all, it was the price of corn which had been, and still would be a check upon agricultural operations over a great part of the country. When England ceased to grow her own corn, England would be in a state of great danger. They might talk about their——
§ Message to attend the Lords Commissioners;—
§ The House went;—and being returned;—