HC Deb 20 July 1883 vol 282 cc95-115
MR. JESSE COLLINGS

, in rising to move, as an Amendment— That, in the opinion of this House, it is desirable, in order to increase the productiveness of the land, to arrest the decline of the rural population, and to promote the interests of the commercial industries of the Country, that provision should be made by Parliament to facilitate the acquirement by agricultural labourers, tenant farmers, and others, of proprietary rights in agricultural land, said, that in the direction which he indicated by his Resolution would be found an important means of arriving at a permanent settlement of the Land Question. The present land system which obtained in this country, and whose tendency was to place land in the hands of an ever-decreasing number of proprietors, had been abolished in every other part of the world, and had entirely broken down as far as England was concerned. Its effect had been such that at the present time one fourth of the land in England and Wales was in the hands of less than 1,000 persons; while, owing to the existence of that system, the farmers of this country were unable to compete either with the American farmers, or with the small land proprietors on the Continent, the result of which was that the farmers in England had fallen into a very bad condition, and labourers, notwithstanding their increased wages, were relatively little better off than they were before. In 1880, out of 1,366 bankruptcies, 9 per cent of the whole were farmers. Then, taking a lower class, that of the agricultural labourers, they were still in a starvation circle, and practically cut off from the land, for the poor farm labourer had no possibility of becoming proprietor of the land he tilled. The effect of all this was to reduce the productiveness of the land. It was said that the produce of all our farms and homesteads was £300,000,000 per annum, and public authorities on that question confirmed the statement that the productiveness of the country could be enormously increased under another land system. For instance, Sir John Laws, in a speech at Berwick, said there was no doubt the Soil of this country could produce far more wheat and meat for the support of the population than it did—if not, indeed, all that is required to support the population. Countries like Friesland and Belgium, supporting a dense population, sent us large quantities of produce, and the supplies derived from other foreign lands were largely increasing. Political economists said—"Why not buy food in the cheapest market?" That question, he thought, ought not to be asked with regard to commodities for the pro- duction of which our soil was suitable, when there were in this country tens of thousands of unemployed and insufficiently - employed people, and, at the same time, tens of thousands of untilled acres, and when the demand for food was always ahead of the supply. During the past 10 years labour on farms had diminished in the majority of cases to only a quarter, or half the number of men, the production having decreased in like proportion. How was it that the productiveness of the soil had diminished? Many farmers talked of bad weather and want of sunshine; but, in many cases, the foul condition of the land was largely the cause of the unproductiveness of the soil. With regard to the rural population, the last Census allowed that it had extensively decreased in almost every parish throughout the country. The number of paupers, however, had not decreased. That showed that a spasmodic increase of prosperity in trade was no true index of the general welfare of the country. What had become of these labourers, who had been "squeezed off the land." Some, and a considerable number, had emigrated, and political enonomists said they had become our customers, because they were cultivating the waste lands in Queensland and Canada. But they would surely have been as good customers, if allowed to remain here and cultivate the waste lands of Devonshire and Warwickshire. What would our wealth do for us, if we got rid of the very backbone of our country, which these men were, by emigration? Then, large numbers of those who were reared in agricultural districts sought their fortunes in towns, where the competition for the means of sustaining life became proportionately keener, and where they were obliged to herd together in dense masses, and ultimately swelled, by the displacement of others who had grown older and less able to labour, the list of paupers. That was a workman's question; and, though they might have their trades unions, strikes, and regulation of out-put, so long as there was this perpetual influx into the great towns they would never have anything but competition in wages. The result to the towns very few knew; but he feared the people of this country would find it out before long if they did not mind what they were about. The condition of the large towns of this country was such as would astonish many men. During the severe winter of 1878–9 he happened to be Mayor of Birmingham; and he found that there were empty cupboards and starvation in the homes, not of chronic paupers, but of very respectable men of the industrial class. That showed him that a few weeks of illness, or of frost, sent them down to pauper condition. If we had an English Zola to put before us a picture of our great towns, people would be very much surprised, especially considering that we were the wealthiest nation in the world. And now he came to the remedy, which was that— Provision should be made by Parliament to facilitate the acquirement by agricultural labourers, tenant farmers, and others, of proprietary rights in agricultural land; and he claimed for it that it would, to a large extent, remove these evils. His proposal generally meant occupying-ownership. According to an eminent writer, peasant proprietary was an art—as far as England was concerned, it was a lost art. It was the art of living and saving on a small farm, and making the land produce more by the superior industry and care of the man who was proprietor of it. No doubt an easy system of land transfer would do a great deal; but they were not likely to have that for a long time, seeing how difficult it was to get the little that was now asked for. There was plenty of land in the market. A writer in The Times of July 5 said that there were 50,000 acres advertised in one day, and he had no doubt that there was five times that amount in the market; but who were the buyers? They were landowners, capitalists, almost anybody but the cultivator. The fact was, as a rule, he had not the money; and while land was bought, not for the primary object of cultivation and production, but as an element of social distinction and importance, there would always be higher prices given for it. And that brought him to the last proposal in his Resolution—that the State should assist certain classes in the purchase of it. In other words, his remedy for the ills of the country was to create a peasant proprietary by State aid. That principle was not new. It had been successfully carried out in the Church Act of 1869. It was carried out by Stein in Prussia, the burden of whose argument was, that he had a duty towards the people of the country; and that was an argument which he (Mr. Jesse Collings) too, in his feeble manner, would wish to place before the House. The principle had been lately advocated by the noble Lord the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton) with reference to Ireland. The noble Lord proposed that the entire purchase money should be advanced to any suitable buyer at 3½ per cent, to be paid back, both interest and capital, at 5 per cent in 35 years. For his own part, he would not go so far as the noble Lord. He thought one-fourth would be sufficient for the State to advance. If his proposal were accepted, it would be necessary for the State to advance money; and he would insist that one-fourth, or, at any rate, a substantial sum, should be found by the purchaser, in order to secure that they had the right man—a man who had an interest in seeing that the price at which ground was bought was not too high, and to secure the public against loss by the transaction. Again, he did not agree with the noble Lord as to the machinery. The noble Lord would have central authorities. But a central authority would require a large Staff, and would not be as economical as a local authority. Everything that concerned the social well-being of the people must be better done by local authorities than by Imperial authorities; and the more important the duties of local authorities were made, the higher would be the qualifications of the men who would undertake them. They were promised County Boards, and he would lot them raise money for this purpose on the security of the rates. The credit of some Municipal Corporations was so good that they could borrow money almost as cheaply as the State. In the first place, he would allot a piece of ground to each village school, where the children might learn the art of raising their own vegetables, and acquire a love for the soil, which would keep them in the rural districts, and so check the overflowing of the rural populations into the great towns. He would limit the farms so bought to 120 acres. There were, however, a smaller class, the best of the labourers and villagers, who had saved a little money, small tradesmen, and others, whom it was desirable to reach. In order to go down lower, and moot the wants of these classes, be would allow the local authorities to buy estates, and on them do nothing but make roads and drain the land, and then let it out in perpetual tenancies to suitable persons in plots from five to 20 or 30 acres. The local authorities could charge 1 per cent over the interest they paid on the money they borrowed. This difference of 1 per cent, invested at 3 per cent per annum, would, in 47 years, recoup the whole amount; and the local authority would be the owners of the ground rents in perpetuity. He should forbid mortgages altogether on those national farms, or limit them to a small extent; but he would allow proprietors to borrow on their stock, furniture, or personal security. The holders would be virtual owners, subject to a ground rent, which would be collected with the rates. It would be said this was a system of land nationalization, and so it was. The remarkable book of Mr. Henry George was being studied so much, and the opinions contained in it were going so far and wide into the minds of the working classes of the country, that it must be answered by some system of Land Reform, which, while just to all parties, would restore, in some shape or another, the land to the people. Unless that was done, in a few years land nationalization on Mr. Henry George's lines would be found to be a formidable power, and the landlords were too few to protect themselves from such an agitation. It was objected that there would be sub-letting; but that he would prohibit; if a man could not cultivate the land let to him, he must sell. It was objected that, in France and Belgium, land hunger and acquisition drove the occupier to the money lender, and that mortgages reduced productiveness; and he would, as he had already said, forbid mortgages altogether in these cases; the holder might borrow on any other security, but the land should be free from debt. It was questioned whether men would pay 3 or 4 per cent if there were landowners who would be content with 2½. Owners who had held any length of time were getting more than 2½ per cent; but the advantages of ownership to the cultivator more than compensated for the difference. The soil would, in fact, become the savings bank of the cultivator. On that point he could produce several instances, in which farms cultivated by their owners had been greatly improved in value through increased productiveness, while there was no such advance in the surrounding farms occupied by tenants. One small owner wrote to him that some people thought Lord Derby was drawing the long bow when he said the production of the soil could be doubled but experience showed that this could be done easily. He had a mass of evidence on every point, and he believed that evidence would fully justify his claim, that this system would cause a larger amount of capital to be invested in the purchase of the land and in its cultivation; that it would increase the productiveness of the soil, both by improved cultivation and by the return of the farmers' savings to the land; that it would give new life to villages and market towns; that it would check the influx into the towns; that it would benefit industry by increasing the demand for manufactured goods; that it would diminish pauperism, and promote the comfort and well-being of the whole population. The existing evils, he maintained, were tending to a war of classes, which he, for one, wished to avoid. He would ask men who read of Social and Communistic doings in Lyons and Marseilles why those doings never went further in Franco than the large towns? It was because they were met by 5,000,000 owners of the soil. In England, there were a few lauded proprietors, and a vast proletariat, larger than any that existed in Europe. These asked for a fair share of the comforts, enjoyments, and material benefits of life. Parliament had to find oat how that could be brought about; and he believed the proposal he had introduced, if accepted, would go a long way towards solving these social questions, and which, if it did not solve them altogether, would, he believed, add to the comfort of the people, and to the safety of the nation generally. The hon. Member concluded by moving the Resolution of which he had given Notice.

VISCOUNT LYMINGTON

, in rising to second the Motion, said, that in doing so he did not wish it to be understood that he was at one with his hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Jesse Collings) as regarded all the details of his scheme, but rather that he fully agreed with the broad principle he had laid down in his Resolution. He sincerely regretted the necessity under which they had been obliged to bring so important a subject forward at so late a period of the Session. He should not attempt, therefore, to detain the attention of the House for other than a short time. In the few remarks he should make he would address himself to those who had no objection to peasant proprietary on principle, but doubted whether the State could properly aid in bringing it about. It was, of course, obvious that the first step in the matter was to cheapen the legal transfer of land. That, he was aware, was a matter about which there was no difficulty in agreeing; but as it would have to be preceded by the simplification of title, it must take a considerable time before it could be generally adopted. There was one argument against the Resolution—namely, with regard to the extent to which it would compromise the State; but that, he thought, should be met by a very strict limit as to the size of the holding above which tile State should not render assistance in the process of purchase; and for these reasons—first, the vicissitudes of agriculture accompanying holdings of a certain size, where the agriculturist looked to his land for corn and produce to sell, rather than for his own consumption. Small holdings cultivated by the personal labour of the owner, and looking to small items for profit, were not affected by foreign competition, but by the increasing home market, and the increase of population. It was reasonable to suppose that what was called agricultural depression would not affect them. Secondly, the man who could afford to buy a small farm had no claim to State assistance. As to the risk of the State, he thought they might consider it would ensue in two ways—namely, through the insolvency of the purchaser, and the fact that a political agitation might ensue. As regarded the insolvency, that might be considered from two points of view — first, how individual character stood in that respect; and, secondly, the results of experience from the working of the "Bright Clauses" in Ireland. In evidence of the first, he would take the amount standing to the credit of the working classes in the savings banks, which amounted to no less than £35,000,000; and, in regard to the second, those who studied the Returns would see that the "Bright Clauses" had, so far as the security of the State was concerned, proved a success, and were a proof of the practicability of the scheme, and of its ultimately beneficial effects. Another objection raised to the proposition of his hon. Friend was that, after all, the markets at the present moment were flooded with land, that there was any amount of land to be bought; and why should not the principle be carried out through the agency of private Companies, through bankers, and in other ways, and that the State should not interfere in the matter? As regarded that point, it must be borne in mind that the labourer was, of necessity, never in a position to make any large contribution of money until, probably, he attained an age when the desire to become a freeholder had entirely passed. It must be borne in mind, too, that the security of the money invested in these Joint Stock Companies was, as was proved by a recent Parliamentary Return, not of a very high order; that those which were already in existence had not proved generally successful; for while he did not wish to infer that there were not many sound ones, still there were a sufficient number of rotten ones to dissuade the working man front investing, and also to seriously damage, in the case of those who had lost their savings, the general cause of thrift. Besides, no private Company could carry on its business as the State could in the scattered parts of England. He quite agreed with what had fallen from his hon. Friend that the agricultural question was both a political and economic one.

Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,

VISCOUNT LYMINGTON

, in continuation, said, that it was not only the insecurity of prices and of seasons that had brought the agricultural question into acute relief; it was from the foundation of our landed system that the troubles and anxieties of the agricultural question arose. He believed it was for political and social reasons that the agitation of the present moment was raised in regard to the land; and he entirely endorsed the view of his hon. Friend that it was not wise for them to shut their eyes to the cry, indistinct as to its practical methods, and unreasoning as it was, of the nationalization of the land. That was a great fact, and would be a great political force in the future; and the only way we should be able to meet it would be to satisfy just and equitable demands by legislation. Bearing all this in mind, he would ask—Was it in the interests of those who wished to retain the rights of landed property to suppose that this great movement was to be diverted from dangerous and turned into safe channels by any mere tinkering of the relations between landlord and tenant, or by any attempt to establish in this country the plausible but conflicting principle of dual ownership. On the other hand, what they saw of the agitation proceeding among the labouring class must convince them that the change proposed by the hon. Member for Ipswich was what they wished. He believed that the popular forces of this country were not more united upon any question than that of the enfranchisement of the labourers. That was a legacy which could not be long deferred from the Reform Bill of 1867. But, while he looked on the county franchise as a necessary consequence of that Reform Bill, it was a leap of increased uncertainty and far greater boldness. If the late Lord Derby considered the Reform Bill of 1867 a leap in the dark, would not the enfranchisement of the agricultural labourer be an infinitely greater one? In the case of the Bill of 1867, the class that were enfranchised were attached to diverse interests and occupations, identical only in their belonging to the same standard of living and of social conditions. The objections which were raised against the Reform Bill of 1867 were simply the commonplaces against a popular and democratic suffrage; but the enfranchisement of the labourer, he confessed, involved a grave political risk. We were about to transfer—and the fact was inevitable—potentially, even it were not at once realized, the political power of the agricultural constituencies into the hands of a class who were not affected by any association or any interest of a substantial character towards the prosperity of the permanent rights of landed property, and this at a time when the Land Question occupied a most prominent place in the public mind, and lent itself to all kinds of ill-considered and revolutionary schemes. 'Whatever might be thought of the nationalization of the land, or of the proposals of Mr. George, it was impossible to be oblivious to the Socialistic ideas in regard to land which were permeating the minds of the people and the literature of' intellectual rather than practical reformers, both in journalism and magazines. In conclusion, he would say that meetings had been held in support of the Resolution of his hon. Friend in various parts of the country. The Agricultural Labourers' Union had held a large meeting at which they passed an unanimous decision in its favour; and it was because he believed it would confer an immense boon upon the country, and one that was desired, that lie should give it his hearty support.

Amendment proposed, To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "in the opinion of this House, it is desirable, in order to increase the productiveness of the land, to arrest the decline of the rural population, and to promote the interests of the commercial industries of the Country, that provision should be made by Parliament to facilitate the acquirement by agricultural labourers, tenant farmers, and others, of proprietary rights in agricultural land,"—(Mr. Jesse Collings,)

—instead thereof.

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

MR. CHAPLIN

said, he was actuated by no feeling of hostility to the view that, in many respects, it was desirable to increase the number of landed proprietors in this country. If he consulted his own feelings and interests, lie should lend whatever influence he could bring to bear to the support of the Motion of the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Jesse Collings), because he (Mr. Chaplin) did not scruple to say that it was in that direction that he, as a landed proprietor, looked in a large degree for safeguards against what might be called the predatory instincts of men like the hon. Member and many of his Friends. In spite of that inclination, however, he could not vote for the Resolution. The Motion of the hon. Member desired an increase of the productiveness of the soil, the arrest of the decline of rural populations, and the promotion of the in- terests of the commercial industries of the Kingdom. This was to be done by what the lion. Member spoke of as the establishment of a peasant proprietary; but the whole object the hon. Member had in view was included in the first of the three portions into which he divided it; for if the productiveness of the soil were increased the rest would follow. The Earl of Derby, he (Mr. Chaplin) know, had made a speech a long time ago in which he declared that the productiveness of the soil might be doubled; but he denied that the noble Earl had ever said it might be doubled with profit. How did the hon. Member establish his proposition that the creation of a peasant proprietary would increase the productiveness of the soil? The hon. Member attributed the decline of the rural population to the present system of land tenure; when that decline was due to a variety of circumstances, prominent among which was the period of agricultural depression through which we had passed. The hon. Member produced a formidable indictment, if it were true, against the English land system; but he offered nothing in support of that indictment, but certain statistics of foreign imports. For that purpose they were absolutely worthless, unless they could be compared with the whole home produce of the country. The hon. Member would lead the House to believe that agriculture was far more flourishing abroad than in England. He (Mr. Chaplin) denied that that was the ease; but supposing it were so, and that the favourable view which the hon. Member took of peasant proprietors in other countries were sustained by facts, it would not prove that the system would prosper in this country. The hon. Member ought to have told the House that agriculture abroad flourished under a system of protection, which was denied to this country. The hon. Member complained that on the Royal Agricultural Commission there were no representatives of labour. To that he (Mr. Chaplin) would reply, that no man was more anxious than Lord Beaconsfield that the labourers should be represented directly on that Commission; but, though several persons were suggested, it was found that not ono of them commanded the confidence of the labourers. The evidence given before the Commission dealt largely with the question of peasant pro- prietors abroad, and the latest information on the subject was undoubtedly to be found in the Reports of Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Sutherland, Sub-Commissioners. In Mr. Sutherland's Report, which referred specially to Western and Central France, he said that in France there were 2,826,388 properties which were worked directly by their owners, the average area of each property being 15 acres. He then went on to describe the condition of the owners in the following words:— The peasant proprietor exists rather than lives. He has no pride in keeping himself or his cottage clean and presentable. His food chiefly consists of bread made from buckwheat or rye, although wheaten bread is gradually coming into more general use. He very rarely tastes meat, except in the form of pork. His drink, if in a wine country, is made from water poured over the already pressed grapes, from which the juice has been extracted and sold. … The peasant owners, examples of industry and thrift carried to excess, slave to get as much out of the land as it can be made to yield, starving themselves and their family to add something to their hoard.; their wives becoming prematurely old. from field labour, and bent from carrying heavy loads of fodder to the cow at home, content if at the year's end the tale of silver pieces be increased … at a sacrifice of all that makes life worth living for. Mr. Jenkins in his Report compared the produce of France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark. He said he agreed. with Mr. Littlehurst's opinion, and especially with the statement that the peasants of Franco were indebted to the extent of £480,000,000 sterling. Mr. Jenkins, in his evidence before the Royal Commission on Production Abroad as compared with Production at Home, in answer to Question 68,106, said that the compulsory division of land in France he found diminished the produce considerably. And, in answer to Question 67,899, he said— If you go to a foreign farmer, and say that you have gone to him to learn something of the agriculture of the country (he will know at once you are an Englishman), he will laugh at you and say—'All the world goes to England to learn farming; you must be making fun of me.' Question 67,900 was— Speaking generally, there is more food produced in England. upon the same acreage than there is in the foreign countries which you have visited? His answer was, "Quite so." That was a conclusive reply to the statement of the hon. Gentleman, that the land sys- tem in England had broken down. With regard to the serfs who were made landlords and peasant proprietors in Russia, a writer in The Quarterly Review) of April, 1881 (p. 446), said— From one end of the country to the other, the so-called. peasant proprietors—that Radical idea of the agrarian states—are in a state of semi-starvation; while in several of the Volga Provinces, once the richest in agricultural produce, the starvation has assumed the form of a widespread famine, which the Government is engaged. in alleviating by considerable grants of money … But the hon. Member for Ipswich appeared not to know that they had peasant proprietors at home; but the fact was, that is Lincolnshire and other counties there were a large number of small freeholders, and another Sub-Commissioner, Mr. Druce, was appointed to report upon their condition in a large number of counties. Mr. Druce was well known in the agricultural world, and at one time had, he believed, been Secretary to the Farmers' Alliance. In his Report of the 1st of January, 1881, on the acquisition and tenure of small holdings, especially in Lincolnshire, and the Island of Axholme, he said— I came across one case, and. I think it was the only one, where the owner of a six-acre plot, with a house and. buildings upon it, had been able to buy his land without borrowing any money; he had been a farm servant. … Under the influence of good times, he had. added to his little farm some 18 acres, which he rented; but he had done no good with them, he said, and. he wished he was back again at farm work. Dealing with the condition of the small freeholders and the character of their cultivation, Mr. Druce said— The small freeholders are poor, and now especially so. … Vast numbers of them are in arrear with the interest on their mortages. … Everybody of whom I inquired, in fact, told. me the same thing. The small proprietors were in a very bad way. Again, he said— It was universally agreed that the harvest of the last few years, including 1880, had teen very deficient, and that the prices had been so low as to be ruinous. … From all quarters I heard the same account. The small freeholders themselves told. me so. Persons who live among them and know them well all said the same thing. Times were very bad with them. … Many led me to infer that their land was mortgaged, without actually saying so, by such answers as the following to my question:—'Does the land belong to you?' 'Well, it belongs to me and. the monkey.' Monkey means mortgagee. As to individual instances, Mr. Druce gave the following, of course suppressing names. This was the case of one man, who said— He could not make both ends meet; he was much better off as labourer, but bought his land, because he considered that his master was getting 3d. a-day out of him, which, he thought, he ought to get himself. Here was another— B., at Foxhill, was an occupier of 13 acres at a rent of £40 a-year. His place was kept very neat and tidy, and his land looked well farmed and managed. With the exception of occasional help, he did all his farm work himself, and 'worked,' he said, 'harder than any labourer,' and working so was just able to make both ends meet. he thought he would have been better off had he remained a farm labourer. he would have been able to save money, and would have worked less. Now, with regard to their cultivation, as compared with the cultivation carried on under the old system, which the hon. Member despised. There was a great deal of evidence on the question, which the hon. Member would have done well to study before introducing the subject. [Mr. JESSE COLLINGS: I have studied it.] Then, why did not the hon. Member bring it forward? That showed a want of candour on the part of the lion. Member, who had deliberately suppressed it, and made it the more necessary for himself to submit that evidence to the House. Mr. Druce, speaking of the absence of live stock on small holdings, said— The absence of live stock on the small holdings is very striking. A sheep is rarely seen. I myself saw none, nor do there appear to lie many cows or other horned stock on them; there are, indeed, some, but neither dairying or cattle breeding or feeding is carried on to any extent in the Isle. And in answer to questions proposed, as to which class grows the most produce, and which cultivates the land to the greater advantage, Mr. Druce said— In my opinion these questions must be answered in favour of the large farmers. From my observations, I cannot give any other answer. … On no large farm, on no moderate-sized farm did I see land so foul and so poorly cultivated as are some of the small occupations. As a rule, the lands in the occupation of the large farmers were well drained and well cared for; but, on the lands of the small owners, I saw the water standing in the furrows, no trenches cut to let it off, the ditches full of weeds, choking up the outfalls, and reeds and other plants in many places growing in the furrows among the corn. A vast number of circulars were sent out by Mr. Druce asking for information with regard to the condition of these men; and of the answers he said— These answers were, with one exception, only, to the effect that in the districts where peasant proprietors existed they were less prosperous than tenant farmers. Although it was most desirable that this important subject should be discussed in the House of Commons, yet he (Mr. Chaplin) must say he could not conceive what there was in the condition of peasant proprietors in this country to give satisfaction, or to produce the desire to make peasant farming general. he had conversed with many of them and inspected their farms; and, as the result of a long and intimate personal acquaintance with them, he was reluctantly obliged to confess that he was convinced that their position was one of hardship, toil, trial, and trouble, which he very much regretted to see, and which he could not conscientiously endeavour to impose upon a larger part of the population. His opinion was that the proposition of the hon. Member was; radically unsound, as well as economically mischievous, and founded upon information which he believed to be entirely erroneous.

MR. D. DAVIES

said, that lie agreed so far with the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Jesse Collings), that he considered it to be the true interest of every landlord to make the land as free as possible, to place no impediments in the way of its division, or else the people would divide it for themselves. However, as to tenants buying their holdings, and paying interest to the Government or local authority on the purchase money at the rate of 5 per cent, when land at present only yielded 2½ per cent, it was simply nonsense; the agricultural community would be bankrupt in a few years. If his tenants were to pay him 5 per cent, what would become of them? He (Mr. D. Davies) knew something of the matter, and he could say that the men who lived on their own farms in Wales were not fit to be in the same parish with those who were tenants; the owners were the worst farmers in the country. A discouraging element in the case was the eagerness there was to sell farms, either on the part of widows, or on that of elderly people, who wished to divide their property among their children. He was pestered with letters from people who were anxious to sell, for those reasons. If the hon. Member for Ipswich would spend a week with him, lie would take him to scores of such farms. He should like to see some such scheme as that of the hon. Member carried out; but it seemed to him to be a hopeless one, for he could not see that it was of any use spending 30s. on the land in order to realize 20s., and yet that was all it amounted to. He had in his employ 4,000 men, most of whom had left the land, and they would not go back to it for the wages they could earn upon it. Millions of money could be spent by landlords in building proper houses for their men; but it was useless to try and tempt them from the towns unless you offered them a greater inducement than 8s. a-week. There was another remark of the hon. Member which was most absurd. He wanted good buildings erected on farms of £50 a-year. If he would try it himself for two years or so, and spend £50,000 or £60,000 of his own money on them, on land which would not pay for the expense, it would soon cure him. If he would only try it, he would very soon change his story. All these statements about the grand crops turned out were all theory. The poor lands were going out of cultivation, because labourers could not be got at a low enough rate of wages to work them at a profit. These poor lauds might be drained and made to grow a little grass; but that was all they were good for. On the other hand, good land was worth as much now as over it was. Then, again, speaking from his own experience, when people had their farms, they wanted to sell them, and that was the most discouraging thing of all. In short, the hon. Member's Motion was simply ridiculous, and he (Mr. D. Davies) hoped he would trouble his brains with something better than what he was doing by this Resolution. He regarded the remarks of the hon. Member as mere theory, the result of a want of practical acquaintanceship with the subject, and he looked upon the whole scheme as rubbish and nonsense, ridiculous and absurd.

MR. BROADHURST

said, he thought the task of enticing men receiving good wages in town to work in the country on clay land was hopeless enough; but it was not the well-employed artizan class whom the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Jesse Collings) referred to. He referred to those poor creatures who were perpetually flocking into the towns from the country, and who lived in a chronic state of poverty, and were a constant source of danger to the State. With regard to the farms mentioned, lie not only desired to see an increase in the number of small farms, but there was also room in this country for a great number of small holdings with large gardens, from a quarter of an acre to those of four or five acres; and he would rather see an increase in the number of these holdings than an increase in the number of farms of 160 acres. Upwards of £11,000,000 or £12,000,000 worth of fruit and vegetables was imported every year into this country from abroad; and it was in order that a portion, or the whole, of that enormous quantity of daily food might he supplied in England, which he maintained could be very easily clone, that he wished to see small holdings created in the country. He was not a landowner, and, therefore, could not speak on the subject with the authority of the hon. Members for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) and Cardiganshire (Mr. D. Davies); but he had had some experience of small allotment holdings, and with the care and labour that, as a rule, were devoted to them they were made remarkably productive and successful. He was himself the youngest of a family of 13 or 14 children; and, when a boy, the yearly averaging wages of his father never exceeded 18s. a-week. But adjoining their house, and attached to it, was a quarter of an acre of garden land, the produce of which was of material importance in the maintenance of so large a family. There was wee in the year in which something could not be gathered from that garden that could be turned into money, in addition to sup! plying he whole wants of the family. What he wanted to point out was that, having himself derived the benefit of that small holding, he was anxious that equal benefits should be extended to his fellow-countrymen. They would never get the same proportion of production out of a 50 or 100 acre holding as from a small holding, cultivated by the man who owned it, simply because it was not in the nature of things that a man would give the same care and attention to the work of cultivation that he would do if he was immediately interested in the results of it as owner. It was on those grounds that he supported the Motion of the hon. Member for Ipswich, which was a very reasonable and highly Conservative proposal, affecting, to a large extent, the welfare of the whole community. He fully concurred in the opinion of his hon. Friend that, unless something was done in the direction of this very modest proposal, there would be set on foot a movement in favour of the adoption of far more radical measures than any now submitted to the consideration of Parliament. There was no denying the fact that Mr. Henry George's book had made a great and lasting impression upon the minds of English working-men readers, who were anxious to secure a larger share in the wealth which their labour created, and they desired to accomplish their object not by force or robbery, but by fair and just means. There was no more true or more lasting Conservative proposal than that those who were possessed of vast landed estates should seek to create as many small holdings as they could; because then, when the great storm reached this country, if ever it did come, the upper classes would find themselves backed by a great army of sturdy, honest, well-to-do, and well-disposed citizens, who would be equally interested with themselves in the defence of that which was called property, and law, and order. He asked the Government to give their earnest attention to this subject, and, at some early date, to do their utmost to give effect to the views which had been so ably put forward by the hon. Member for Ipswich. Where the allotment system had been fully tried and carried out, it had been invariably attended with a successful result, and with the greatest benefit to those participating; and if the Labourers' Friend Society, which came into existence about 50 years ago, and adopted that system, had continued to exist, the labouring classes would be the most contented to be found in England; but, notwithstanding its great success, it fell to pieces because its management was in the hands of members of a particular religious Body in whom the agricultural labourers had no confidence. He saw no reason why what was done 50 years ago should not be done now. Had that system been continued, the country would have been more prosperous and contented that it was at the present time.

MR. BIDDELL

said, he regarded with great satisfaction the fact that the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Jesse Collings) had brought this subject under the notice of the House. The reason why the inhabitants of the rural districts flowed into the towns was, because their labour was no longer profitable to those who employed them. He denied they were in that starving condition described by the hon. Gentleman opposite. On the contrary, their condition had greatly improved. They were now better housed; indeed, there were many indications that they were better off than they were. They were certainly better clothed than they used to be; and, from his own experience, he knew that the cost of agricultural labour had risen 40 per cent. The persons who wanted the sympathy of the House were the corn growers, whose market had been ruined by a policy, the effects of which were now being felt in Birmingham itself. When he walked through that town and saw shop after shop closed, and those very articles which Birmingham once shone in coming from America, he thought that there they must feel there was something in affording Protection to native industry. It was absurd to suggest that there was any monopoly in land; there was plenty of land in the public market, and far more in the private market, for anyone who would buy it. The hon. Member might extend his charity to those who were nearer home. Thousands of families in London and other large towns lived each in one room. Labourers in the country were far better off than in the towns, and many in his (Mr. Biddell's) own employment, after going to a town, had returned and asked to be taken back into their old positions. He should be glad, although he had very little confidence in the matter, to see a larger number of peasant proprietors; but with regard to advancing State money for the purchase of the land, lie doubted whether any of it would come back, or whether it would very much benefit those for whose benefit it was intended.

MR. ARTHUR ARNOLD

said, he thought the Motion was one which ought to be supported.

MR. STORER

rose to address the House, when—

Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members not being present,

House adjourned at Twelve o'clock till Monday next.