THE GOVERNMENT AND SMALL HOLDINGS.

HL Deb 30 May 1907 vol 175 cc4-44

*THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE

rose to call attention to the Memorandum of evidence as to allotments and small holdings lately presented to both Houses of Parliament [Cd. 3468]. The noble Marquess said: My Lords, I hope your Lordsips will not think that I am unduly pertinacious in recurring to this subject. It is one of great importance and one in which this House takes great interest; and I do not think we could possibly allow it to remain where it has been left by the Parliamentary Paper to which I desire this evening to call attention. Your Lordships will recollect that before the Easter vacation attention was called in this House to a speech delivered by the Prime Minister at the Holborn Restaurant on the subject of agricultural depopulation. I am not going to review that speech a second time, but I must say once more that to most of those who read it it certainly seemed to amount to an assertion that agricultural depopulation was in great measure due to the attitude of the landowning class in this country; that if there was any difficulty in bringing about a restoration of the people to the soil, that difficulty was at any rate largely created by the attitude of the landowning class, and that the landowning class was, or many of them were, actuated by what I can only describe as purely selfish motives. I know quite well that the noble Marquess who leads this House and the noble Earl who sits beside him disclaimed any such intention on the part of the Prime Minister, and I accept that disclaimer unhesitatingly; but the impression produced by that speech has been strengthened by other speeches made by colleagues and supporters of noble Lords on the Front Bench opposite who have dealt with the same question. Your Lordships will recollect that upon the occasion to which I have referred we challenged the statement of the Prime Minister and we asked for the production of that great mass of evidence upon which his statement was alleged to have been founded; and we asked in particular for some proof, founded on official documents, of the assertion that in numerous cases the demand for small holdings had been met by what the Prime Minister described as a blank denial.

We have been kept waiting some time for the production of this evidence. I questioned my noble friend the President of the Board of Agriculture on the subject, I think, on 2nd May, and gathered from him that there had been delay because the amount of information was so enormous that there had been difficulty in condensing it. We felt pity for the noble Earl We pictured him to ourselves wrestling with this great mass of documents and endeavouring to produce from

them an extract corresponding to those which profess to reproduce the whole of the nutritive qualities of an ox com pressed within the compass of a single tablespoon. We have now got the document. Here it is, and I cannot help feeling that it must be somewhat disappointing both in quality and in quantity to those who expected to find in it the material for an indictment of the landowning class. It is certainly not disappointing to us, because most of us expected that we should find that the outcome of the noble Earl's exertions would be something of the kind we hold in our hands. I hope he will not think me disrespectful if I say that in the whole course of my Parliamentary experience I have never come across a clumsier or more unsuccessful attempt to bolster up a weak case.

The condemnation covers a series of documents. There are five groups of documents, and, if your Lordships will bear with me for a few moments, I should like to call your attention as briefly as I can to each of them. The first is the Report of and the evidence taken before the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Small Holdings which was appointed in 1888. The first observation that occurs to me in regard to that Report is that it is a little out of date. There is a great deal of official testimony of a much later date and corresponding much more closely with the facts as we know them to-day; and the fact that this Report is out of date is important, because I find in it a statement that the practice of consolidating holdings which did prevail during the earlier part of the last century had practically ceased; so that I hope I am justified in saying that we have to deal to-day with an order of things differing very materially from that with which the Committee had to deal.

Now, my Lords, let us see what the condensers are able to make of the Re port of that Committee. They find in it only a single line which appears to them worth quoting in this Memorandum. It is this— The demand for small holdings appears to be general in all parts of England and Wales. That is not a very broad basis for an indictment of the land-owning class of this country. But the Memorandum then proceeds to deal with the evidence. There are fourteen quotations from the evidence. I admit that one or two of the witnesses do mention the reluctance of certain landlords to let or sell land for the purpose of small holdings, but there is nothing to show whether the reasons given for that objection were justifiable or unjustifiable reasons; and your Lord ships will perhaps notice that all the witnesses, or the larger number of them, referred to the objections entertained by the farmers and apparently gave those objections a much greater amount of prominence than the objections of the landowners. But there is nothing what ever that I can find in the evidence laid before the Committee to suggest anything approaching to an attitude of general obstruction on the part of the landowners of this country. There are various quotations from the evidence. Some of them do not seem to me very convincing. There is, for example, a lengthy quotation from a gentleman who is described as the secretary of the National Fruit Growers' League. Now what had he to say? He says— There are hundreds of young men in London, independent of the agricultural districts, and in most of our large towns thousands of young men with capital, who, if they could get the small holdings, would readily take them up. I am not quite convinced that among those hundreds or those thousands of young men, taken may be from the town and not from the country, you would find people who were really likely to be trans muted at once into small farmers able to win their way in the world in that profession of life. I see a quotation from the evidence of Mr. Fyffe, Estates Bursar of University College, Oxford. Mr. Fyffe, again, lays much more stress upon the objections of farmers than he does upon the objections of the land lords.

Then I do not like to pass by, lest it should appear disrespectful, a quotation from the evidence tendered by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack— evidence which I must say appeals very much to me. The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, then Mr. R. T. Reid, M.P., told the Committee that there were— Some parts of the country in which, whether from territorial reasons or from other reasons, I know not what, landlords will not part with their land. I agree that there may be territorial and other reasons, and I believe that in many cases they will prove to be excellent reasons. But I should like to refer to a statement not quoted in this excerpt, but immediately preceding the sentence quoted. Mr. Reid then said— I do not believe that if Parliament pro claimed a policy of small holdings the land lords would set their faces against it. That is a feeling which I share entirely with the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack. All I have to say about the Report of 1890 is this. The Committee considered whether there was before them a case for demanding compulsory powers, and they placed upon record their opinion that a provision of the kind was unnecessary, and that if it were to be resorted to it was not likely to be largely availed of.

Then I pass to the second document dealing with the returns of proceedings under the Small Holdings Act, 1892. It appears from the Memorandum that a difficulty was experienced in coming to terms in nine counties, and your Lord ships will find them enumerated on page 7 of the Memorandum. I should like to say a word or two about the counties selected. Take first the county of Corn wall. The framer of the Memorandum reports that— The Committee endeavoured to obtain land for the purposes of the Act in different parts of the county, but found that in some cases the land applied for already formed part of small tenements, and that in others the owners were unwilling to part with the land. I turn to the much later report, the Departmental Report of the Board of Agriculture for 1906, and I look at the passage on page 72 dealing with the county of Cornwall. This is what the reporters of the Agricultural Department had to say last year as to the county of of Cornwall— There is no evidence of any demand for allotments that is not fully supplied …. Land for small holdings is obtainable without much difficulty, but the expense of erecting the necessary buildings is practically prohibitive. That is the modern portrait of the condition of things in the county of Cornwall. Now I pass to the county of Dorset, which comes next. In the county of Dorset the Memorandum states that— The sub-committee believe that consider able difficulty would be experienced in obtaining available land. Turning to the Report of last year, I find in it this— In some districts there is little demand for small holdings. and— A large area in the county is not adapted for this kind of husbandry, and— The applicants are not of the agricultural labourer class, but mostly small tradesmen and townsfolk, whose experience is very limited and whose requirements as to building accommodation make it extremely doubtful that they could make sufficient out of the produce of a small holding at prevailing prices to pay an adequate rent to cover the heavy outlay that would be necessary. The Report summarises the case for the county of Dorset in these words— It is not considered that the lack either of allotments or small holdings has contributed to the decline in population. I come next to the county of Lincoln, about which there is something to be said, but I will reserve that because the case of that county arises upon another document.

I will say one word with regard to a county with which I have some connection, the county of Wilts. It is dismissed in these words— Suitable land was pointed out, but the committee were unable to come to terms with the owner. Your Lordships will observe that that is one single case upon which the county of Wiltshire is, so to speak, found guilty. Let us see what the Report of last year has to say about the county of Wiltshire. Mr. Squarey, a gentleman of great knowledge, of great reputation, not only in Wiltshire but in the whole of the West of England, dwells upon the fact that— The questions of housing, homestead, water supply and fencing are the main obstacles. Not the reluctance of landlords. He goes on— We have several instances of property split up into small holdings, which for the most part are not satisfactory from a financial and industrial point of view. Only in one case am I fairly assured of their being financially a success. As one who knows something about the county of Wiltshire, I may be permitted to say that I am aware that the County Council of Wiltshire exerted them- selves to the utmost to promote the cause of small holdings, and found a difficulty, not owing to the obstructive attitude of landlords, but because there really at that time, throughout the greater part of the county, did not seem to be that intense desire for such holdings which perhaps existed in one or two districts with which the noble Earl opposite and I are familiar. I may say generally of that Return that it certainly does not provide any justification whatever for a general complaint that the landlords have stood in the way of the success of the policy of small holdings.

But I pass from that to the next document, which has reference to the proceedings under the Allotments Acts and the Allotments Clauses of the Local Government Act, 1894. This summary is really a very remarkable one. There is an enumeration of nine rural districts in which land was not obtained by agreement. Would your Lordships believe it? The Return from which those nine rural districts are selected deals with no fewer than 518 rural districts; and there are only nine in which this difficulty was experienced. I must not do the compiler of the return an injustice. He throws in besides a single parish extracted from another part of the Return—the parish of Erpingham, in Norfolk, of which it is said that— The only suitable piece of land belonged to an owner who would neither sell nor let. What joy there must have been when the gentleman entrusted with these researches discovered this parish of Erpingham and the one obstructive owner. This is what is said of that in the Report— A local inquiry was held in this parish in July, 1891. The committee found that the only suitable piece of land was a place of about six acres, except some pieces which were already in the hands of small owners.'' So that there was already to a certain extent a compliance with the demand. Erpingham, I find, is one of a group of eleven Norfolk parishes, in all of which the local authority found it possible to make satisfactory arrangements for obtaining small holdings. Is. it really fair to parade this one fly in the pot of ointment, so to speak, and to cite the case to us as a proof that in that part of England a difficulty has been en countered from the attitude of land owners?

The next Return is the Report of the Departmental Committee appointed by my noble friend Lord Onslow in 1906. Lord Onslow's Report extends over forty pages and the compilers of the Memorandum have found in it one passage of four lines which they cite in order to establish the case made by the Prime Minister in his speech at the Holborn Restaurant. Now I am not at all sure that the compilers have dealt quite fairly with my noble friend Lord Onslow, for if your Lordships have the Report in your hands you will find that this brief passage does not convey an adequate impression of the whole effect of the paragraph from which it is taken. This is what my noble friend says— Until the middle of last century the policy of landowners on the advice of their agents was, as is well known, to consolidate holdings. and— It may be safely said that expert advice at the present day would be to the effect that on a large estate there should be holdings of all sizes, that some land may be most advantageously farmed over large areas, some in medium-sized holdings, and others in small holdings. and— In a few cases agents might not advise this course on the ground that the collection of rent and the repair of buildings is more troublesome in the case of small holders. Then comes the passage quoted in the Memorandum, but the Report goes on— and this passage is not cited— Of the agents who appeared before the Committee none expressed themselves as hostile to the creation of small holdings, while most of them lamented the economic difficulties in the way of providing and equipping them. That, I venture to think, puts a different face on the Report of my noble friend from what it is made to bear in this compilation. The Report goes on to refer in terms of commendation to the evidence given by a Member of this House, Lord Harrowby, who pointed out that outside a limited area, where residential amenities are the principal consideration, there is a vast amount of land, the owners of which would not improbably be willing to sell or to adapt the land to small holdings. Well, so much for the Report of the noble Earl's Departmental Committee. But the compilers of the Memorandum have sought to find in the evidence what they could not find in the text of the Report, and they give a number of quotations, and I cannot say I think these quotations are very conclusive. There is a long quotation from the admirable and interesting evidence given by Miss Jebb, but I find no reference to a passage which I think my noble friend referred to the other day, in which Miss Jebb says— In nearly every district where I have been, I have seen land which has come into the market recently, or is going to come in, or has come in some years ago, which has been in a great many cases just bought by another man for a very small sum, and which it would have been a mere matter of organisation to have acquired for the smaller man. There is no evidence here of anything like an attempt to withhold land from the market by those who had it at their disposal. Then, again, there is a quotation from the evidence of Mr. Winfrey, whose chief difficulties seem to have been encountered when he got to close quarters with the present colleagues of the noble Earl, the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, who, I imagine, can hardly be regarded as game preservers and addicted to those obstructive tactics in which large landlords are supposed to indulge.

There is one more important quotation, namely, from the evidence of Mr. H. M. Jonas, who is, I understand, the gentleman to whom has now been entrusted the management of Crown estates formerly administered under the Office of Woods and Forests by two extremely well-known firms of high reputation, Messrs. Clutton and Messrs. E. J. Smith. These firms, which had for years enjoyed the confidence of the Office of Woods and Forests, and who are well known throughout the United Kingdom, have, I understand, received their congé and Mr. Jonas reigns in their place. It has been explained that the two dismissed firms have not shown them selves sufficiently sympathetic to the cause of small holdings. I do not know the reasons for which that is alleged; but I do know that in the county to which I referred just now and with which I am personally connected, a very considerable number of small holdings were established on the Crown estates, under the auspices of one of these two firms, though they were not able to see their way to recommend the adoption of the same policy indiscriminately and without regard to the local conditions.

Now, what has Mr. Jonas to tell us? One farm to which he refers belongs to one of the Cambridge colleges. There again one would hardly expect to find a hide-bound game preserver at work. Mr. Jonas says— There was an application made for allotments to the county council, an inquiry was held, and the matter fell through for some reason; the tenant who farmed the proposed land opposed it, and notice to quit has been given to the tenant and he is leaving. The tenant has to go. Now this may be sympathetic treatment for those who desire small holdings, but it certainly looks as if the tenant who wishes to have his say when the disintegration of his farm is proposed must not expect the same measure of sympathetic treatment. I hope this poor man was allowed to make good his claim to the full for those compensations for disturbance which we know are dear to the hearts of noble Lords opposite. I leave the Report of my noble friend's Committee. I have read it, as I daresay your Lordships have, with attention, and I do not find evidence to support the accusation made against landowners; but I do find very distinct evidence of the movement of the population townwards, a movement which is taking place, as your Lordships will remember, not only in this country, but in all parts of Europe. I find also very distinct statements as to the difficulty of obtaining what I may call the proper raw material for making small land holders, for it is not every man who can conduct a small holding successfully; and above all I find throughout the evidence that stress is laid on the overwhelming difficulty of finding the proper equipment for small holdings when you have created them, and, believe me, it is this difficulty which explains the reluctance of land lords, where there has been reluctance, and of local authorities, where there has been reluctance, to establish small holdings on a large scale.

I have only one other document to which it is necessary for me to refer, but it is of very great importance, and that is the Report issued by the Department of Agriculture last year upon the decline in the agricultural population of Great Britain. It is a document I very much commend to the attention of any of your Lordships who have not had an opportunity of considering it. It covers the whole of the United Kingdom and it illustrates, in great variety of experience and opinion, what has been going on in different parts of the country. The book contains, in the first place, a Report by Mr. Rew, one of the assistant secretaries of the Board of Agriculture, and I may say that it is one of the most interesting documents it has even been my good fortune to peruse. The compilers of the. Memorandum have selected a very few lines from Mr. Rew's Report, and I presume it was the strongest passage for their purpose they were able to find— It is possible, of course, that an apparent absence of demand may be due, to some extent at least, to the recognition of the futility of asking for what is practically unobtainable. The majority of the correspondents, however, report that there is a demand for small holdings, which is not satisfied for reasons which many of them specify. Here again I do not think the compilers of the Memorandum have dealt justly with Mr. Rew's admirable Report, and I should like to read a few lines which have close connection with the passage I have just read. On the first page Mr. Rew says— There is obviously a risk that observations made under exceptional conditions or over limited areas may be put forward and accepted as characteristic of the whole country. He refers then to the value of the evidence obtained from the agricultural correspondents, whose opinions he cites, and then towards the end of his Report this is what he writes— From about a score of counties it is reported that small holdings are little in request, or, at any rate, that no specific instance of a desire to obtain a small holding has come under the notice of the correspondent. Then comes the passage quoted in the Memorandum. Mr. Rew goes on —and these words are also omitted from the Memorandum— But at the same time there is certainly some evidence of a disinclination among those who have been brought up on t the land to undertake the risks of farming. This is quite an important factor, if I may be allowed to say so, in the calculation. Further on, upon page 19, Mr. Rew refers to the difficulties in providing small holdings and says— That which may be said to overshadow all the rest is the cost of equipment. The difficulty, as one Report says, ' is not in obtaining land, but in the cost of putting up the requisite buildings,' or, in another phrase, ' the essential difficulty is the cost of erecting buildings meeting the modern requirements of sanitary authorities and the prospect of insufficient return in the shape of rent.' This is an observation to which I think too much attention cannot be given, but it is not mentioned by the compilers of the Memorandum. Not having found much to suit their book in Mr. Rew's Report, the compilers of the Memorandum then rummaged the evidence, and they have collected a few plums which they display on page 13. These extracts are very brief, and they come to nothing more than this—that in the fifteen or twenty counties mentioned there has been some difficulty in obtaining small holdings. I do not doubt there has. But what we want to know is how that difficulty has been occasioned—whether it has been due to the attitude of those who own the land, rather than to other and subsidiary causes. In order to determine whether that count in the indictment is proved I must ask your Lordships to have patience with me while I verify a few of the quotations in the Memorandum by calling attention to the context, without which these quotations seem to me to convey very imperfectly the meaning of the witnesses. And who are these witnesses? As I understand, they are gentlemen who have been singled out, owing to their special capabilities and experience, to act as correspondents of the Agricultural Department in different parts of the country. I am particular upon this point, because not long ago it was suggested by no less an authority than the Prime Minister that those gentlemen were not altogether impartial. I do not know upon what ground that suspicion was founded. In Mr. Rew's Report, which, I presume, was issued with the authority of the President of the Board of Agriculture, they are thus referred to— In their staff of agricultural correspondents, the Board possess facilities for obtaining ob- servations by well-qualified observers distributed in every county of Great Britain. And further on they are again described as— A body of competent observers. I do not know why it should be suggested that the evidence of those gentle men is in any way open to suspicion any more than why it should be suggested hereafter that the Agricultural Commissioners to whom it is intended to entrust the duty of keeping the county councils in order are persons whose impartiality is to be called in question because they owe their appointments to the Government of the day. At any rate, I presume the evidence of these gentlemen is worth quoting, for other wise the Board of Agriculture would not have quoted it in the Memorandum they have laid before us.

In regard to Lincolnshire, we are told in the Memorandum— At present, owing to the great demand, small holdings command a higher rent than they are really worth. There is a difficulty in obtaining land for small holdings, for which there is a keen demand. But what does the correspondent say?— There is not the slightest difficulty in obtaining allotments. In fact there are insufficient applications in many cases. Few labourers have any capital to take up small holdings." Further on it is said— Mr. Frankish thinks that there is not now any difficulty in obtaining small holdings, but that there are few places in Lincolnshire, except Holland, where they can pay, and even there they are said to be overdone and profits very-much reduced. So much for the county of Lincolnshire. I will now take Yorkshire. Yorkshire is dismissed in the Memorandum with these words— A difficulty is experienced in obtaining suitable land for allotments and small holdings. But what does the correspondent say? Mr. Pearson writes— The land round here was originally owned by small men, but, with few exceptions, now forms one estate. Some villages are still occupied by small freeholders, and those may be frequently detected by the dilapidated state of the buildings, etc. That is not very encouraging for Yorkshire. With regard to Sussex, we are told in the Memorandum— There is a very great difficulty in obtaining small holdings, for which there is a keen demand. On the other hand one of the correspondents writes— There appears to be no difficulty as regards allotments, and these are not much wanted, as most of the cottages have good gardens attached. With reference to small holdings Mr. Haviland writes— The demand is created quite as much by retired tradesmen and people who vainly hope to make a living amidst pleasant surroundings as by agricultural labourers who have saved a few pounds and seek to improve their position. Another correspondent says he finds no general desire for small holdings and remarks that the small holder is the first to go to the wall when depression sets in. He adds— There are numbers of holdings from 6 to 20 acres to let, and there is a difficulty in finding tenants able and willing to use the land. A third correspondent says that— Small holdings are not in demand except near towns, and, as far as I can ascertain, land owners are always ready to meet any demand, provided they can get sufficient rent to cover the extra outlay required. That surely is not very unreasonable on the part of the landlords. Your Lord ships will observe that as regards this county four correspondents give information, and that only one is quoted in the Memorandum, namely, the gentleman whose evidence appears to suit the Government's case. With regard to Shropshire, we are told— Holdings of three or four acres of grass land are not sufficiently plentiful; and had such been offered to thrifty labourers the prospect would have counterbalanced the desire for change. The correspondent of the Board of Agriculture writes— Land could no doubt be had at a reasonable price, but no one seems disposed to bear the cost of the houses and buildings, knowing that no ordinary tenant could pay anything like fair interest on the outlay. I ask your Lordships' particular attention to the reference to Worcester in the Memorandum. It says— No doubt more small holdings would be taken up if they were available. The difficulties in the way of small holdings are — —then there is a series of dots to indicate an omission— the unwillingness of the large farmers to part with any of their land. On page 68 of the Report of 1906 this is what I find about the county of Worcester. Mr. Wheeler, the correspondent, writes— As a rule the small holder does better as a tenant than as a freeholder; the latter generally goes under, at all events, in the second generation. And he remarks that— The difficulties in the way of the creation of small holdings are:—(1) The expense of providing the necessary buildings. That is left out altogether, and only number (2)—the unwillingness of the large farmers to part with any of their land—is given. I will now take Hereford. In regard to Hereford, the quotation in the Memorandum is important, because it says that in part of it— The owners, being large game preservers, preferred to have large farms rather than small holdings. That is the only passage I can find which suggests that anything like selfish considerations prevail with the landlords. But what does the correspondent say? He says— The number of allotments appears to be equal to the requirements. As regards small holdings, Mr. Riley writes— Hereabouts, and, indeed, all over the county, there are so many small holdings that there has been no agitation for them. Then comes the little passage which I have just quoted from the Memorandum, and immediately following it are these words— It would be better to have more 12 to 30 acre farms, but it simply does not pay to make them. The county, being adapted to orcharding, is very favourable for small holdings. The Memorandum tells us as to Devonshire— In some cases there is a difficulty in obtaining land for small holdings, and to some extent this is thought to have contributed to the rural exodus. To some extent! Again, I turn to the Report on the decline in the agricultural population. In the correspondent's communication the passage which I have just read is immediately followed by these words— At the same time, it is remarked that few labourers could enter on a holding without assistance. The chief obstacle is not the want of land, but the cost of providing the requisite buildings. I will refer to two only of the Scottish counties. In the Memorandum we read that in Aberdeenshire there is a general want of small holdings. One correspondent writes— There is no difficulty in obtaining land in this district. The proprietors would be glad to let or sell land if suitable applicants could be found and a fair and reasonable price offered. The Aberdeen County Council advertised some years ago for applicants to take up small holdings or allotments, and very few applied. These were on investigation found undesirable. Another correspondent writes— Small holdings or allotments can only form a partial remedy for rural depopulation, and a poor one at the best. While they might prove successful in the immediate neighbourhood of towns or growing villages, where trades men and others might, by the cultivation of such allotments, add to their incomes, such holdings would never have the effect of bringing the people back to the land. In upland districts, in our glens and straths, small holdings will not induce young men to return to the country. … If it were not for the feeling of independence that the possession of a farm or croft creates, men would be far better off financially if employed as servants. Perthshire is also black-listed, and one correspondent is quoted in the Memorandum as saying that— there is difficulty in getting small holdings in this part of the country. In the Report there are three correspondents quoted, but only the opinion I have read is given in the Memorandum. The second correspondent states that in his district there is no great desire for small holdings, and that in two town ships the number has declined from twenty to thirteen, and from eight or nine to two; while the third correspondent observes that there is not much demand for small holdings, unless for fruit growing.

I apologise for having quoted these Reports at such length, but it really was impossible to establish the case I desired to establish without referring somewhat fully to them. I think it is only fair to say that on a general view of all these documents, and of the evidence by which these documents are supported, your Lordships will come to the conclusion that, if there has been any reluctance on the part of the landlords to create more of these small holdings, it has been because the landlords, as practical men, gave weight to the various considerations which are urged with so much force by the correspondents of the Department over which my noble friend presides. It is for that reason that difficulty has been experienced and not because there has been any desire on the part of the landlords to pursue what I may call a policy of obstruction towards the creation of these holdings.

The landowners no doubt think of the welfare of their own estates and they have a right to do so, but they know perfectly well that if these experiments are tried in a haphazard and incautious manner a great deal more is involved than the welfare of their own estates. They have to think, in the first place, of what is due to the sitting tenants, whose interests, after all, they have to take into consideration, and on behalf of whom I shall certainly not appeal in vain to the occupants of the opposite bench. And they have also to bear in mind that, should these experiments be tried recklessly and lead to disaster, that disaster may involve not only a number of well-meaning people who may be inveigled into embarking upon a somewhat precarious career, but also the ratepayers, or whoever the people are, who will have to find that large sum of money which undoubtedly will be necessary if you are to equip these holdings in a proper manner.

To my mind the worst thing that could happen is that this question should be dealt with in such a manner as either to distort the judgment of the public or to create private irritation by importing into it what I may call considerations of class prejudice. I hope your Lordships may have an opportunity of reading a most interesting book which has lately been written by a very distinguished French statesman, I mean M. Méline, on the subject of the return to the land. A very remarkable picture is given there of the agricultural situation in France which we have always been brought up to regard as the country which is the home of the peasant proprietor. Another writer, Mr. Jesse Collings, whose book is I think a classic on this subject, says that since the time of the Revolution the career of the French tillers of the soil has been one of increasing comfort and prosperity. In spite of this, what does M. Méline tell us? That the French tiller of the soil is leaving the soil. I will quote his own words— Our agricultural population has been decreasing steadily in accordance with the Fates. If the country has been abandoned, this has not been without reasons, and the reasons still exist. The agricultural labourer has deserted the soil because it imposed upon him too much work and too many privations. I commend to your Lordships M. Méline's conclusion. He says— The return to the land will not be brought about by violent and empirical measures, but scientifically and by men of good will working in concord and unity. My Lords, I believe that in that work the landowners of this country are willing to bear their part, and I believe it may be a very useful part, if only noble Lords opposite and their friends will be good enough to regard them as allies rather than as common enemies, and will refrain from encouraging their more hot-headed supporters to undertake against them the kind of crusade with which they have been so constantly threatened of late.

THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (Earl CARRINGTON)

My Lords, I do not think that there is anyone on this side of the House who will find fault with, or complain of, a single word in the speech to which we have just listened. The noble Marquess has stated his case with perfect fairness and great clearness, and, if I might be permitted to say so, he has from his point of view made out a very good case indeed. If no answer were given it might be supposed that it was almost unanswerable; but I hope I may be able to convince some noble Lords opposite that our case is perhaps the better of the two.

The noble Marquess began by calling me to account for not having dealt quite fairly with the case. I think the answer to that is that the Memorandum which was asked for was only intended to give one side of the case. I am not in the least ashamed of it. That was the kind of evidence which I understood the noble Marquess asked for. What I was asked to do was to substantiate a statement which had been made, and I have done it to the best of my ability. I did not pretend to present both sides of the question; I picked out one side, and the noble Marquess now, quite legitimately, has picked out the other side of the case; and I am bound to say he has done it uncommonly well. I must say I regret that the Prime Minister's name has been introduced.

THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN

Why?

EARL CARRINGTON

If a speech or the conduct of any Minister is impugned, surely it ought to be impugned in the House of which he is a Member, and where he is able to answer for himself. The noble Marquess asserted that the contention of the Prime Minister was that the agricultural depression was largely due to the land-owning class, but I am glad to say the noble Marquess accepted the disclaimer that was made. Then he mentioned several other speeches made by independent Members of the Liberal Party and others. I cannot be expected to answer for them, and I am afraid I must leave them to answer for themselves. We were told a month ago that the Prime Minister's charge was not levelled at individual landlords, nor at farmers, nor at the local authorities, but at landowners as a class. I beg most distinctly to state that the Prime Minister never made such a charge at all; my right hon. friend had no intention what-ever of accusing landlords as a class of any supposititious organised opposition to small holdings, and his words cannot, I maintain, be twisted into such an imputation. The actual words used were— The demand for land for the purpose of use and labour is met by a blank denial.

A NOBLE LORD

By whom?

EARL CARRINGTON

My right hon. friend did not in any way apportion the blame between these three classes, but evidence has been laid before Parliament showing where impediments to the acquisition of land have been created by them. I maintain that the accuracy of the statement has been vindicated by the evidence laid before Parliament. Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman is the last man in the world to bear any malice against any individual or class, though no public man has suffered more from misrepresentation, perhaps I might say from abuse. I hope I may now be permitted to pass entirely from the personal part of the question.

It is a great satisfaction to me to hear that the landlords are not unwilling to provide land for small holdings. That is uncommonly good news. The circumstance will make the task to which we have put our hands very much easier. We have been told that in many cases there is no demand for small holdings. Everything that I can see points entirely to the contrary. I will not weary the House with the figures I gave a month ago, but I ask your Lordships to look at the experience of the Crown lands which I laid before the House last month. Also I would urge the House to consider the difficulty which men of the labouring class experience in making their voices heard when they are anxious to get small holdings. They are confronted with the technicalities of statutory procedure, and naturally it is difficult for them to express their opinions, and they are to a certain extent inarticulate. The landlords, I agree, have no wish to obstruct, but they have a great difficulty as regards the position of their agents and their farmers. The phrase "blank denial" did not apply to the landlords alone; it extended also to the farmers and the agents of the different properties.

Perhaps I may be permitted to refer to a case which came within my own personal knowledge. I think it is one of hundreds of cases. Some thirty years ago I used to go every year to shoot with a friend who had a very pretty wife, a very good woman who played the Lady Bountiful on the estate. Every day she used to drive a capital pair of ponies down to the village and inquire after the parson's wife, who had had another baby, or give a pudding to a poor old woman with a bad leg. At that time agricultural depression was beginning, and farmers were threatening to leave their farms, and she said to one of the women in the village, "Can't I do anything to supplement these men's wages?" The woman replied, "Oh yes, my lady, if his lordship would give us a bit of land it would help us." At dinner that day she said to me, "You know something about small holdings. How am I to set about it?" I told her that the first thing to do was to square the agent. Two or three days before I left I asked the lady how she was geting on in the matter, and she said the agent had circumvented her. He had told her he would do anything in the world she wished, and then had gone to Bob, had pointed out how small holdings would interfere with partridge driving, and had made a suggestion which would have resulted in their being unable to get any land for two years when, he said, they would be all right. She asked Bob it he would get rid of the agent, but she told me that Bob was funny in some things and said "No." So far as I know, from that day to this there has been on that estate very few allotments and hardly any small holdings at all. That is a perfectly true story, and I think it well describes the difficulties that land-lords and their wives have to meet in their attempt to promote small holdings. It is not, therefore, quite fair to put all the blame on the landlords themselves.

As to the Select Committee of 1888,. since the noble Marquess thinks its investigations out of date, I will save your Lordships' time by leaving it out of account, and will come straight to the evidence given before Lord Onslow's Committee of 1906. I should like to call attention to the evidence of Miss Jebb. In answer to the Question No. 7894, Miss J ebb said — There are plenty of men wanting land and unable to get it. Another witness, Mr. James Long, in answer to Question No. 1830, said— We had 2,000 applications for small holdings. Then my friend Mr. Winfrey said— I think a number of landowners and agents I are against small holdings, and Lord Harrowby, whose name is really a household word as regards allotments and who has 2,000 acres under small holdings and allotments, said— I had twenty-eight applications for one small holding, and could easily let an additional 500 acres. I thing it is clear that there is a general demand for allotments in many parts of the country.

I come now to my friend Mr. Rew's Report of 1906; and I may incidentally remark that Mr. Rew has forgotten more about agricultural matters than most people have ever known. He is not an idealist, he is not a socialist or a novelist, but a hard-headed practical man, and his opinion is a very valuable one. We are told in that Report that the supply exceeds the demand. I am bound to say, wishing to play the game perfectly fairly, that in that Report, from Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, and Buckinghamshire, that opinion is very plainly stated. The noble Marquess rather rallied me in regard to the statements of my own correspondents. I say at once that the correspondents of the Board over which I have the honour to preside are men of the highest integrity and of the highest knowledge, and in agricultural matters their opinion is worthy of great respect and attention; but their opinion on every single subject connected with agriculture is not necessarily valuable. One would not take a French cook to fulfil the duties of a whipper in. The Duke of Connaught yesterday inspected the Chelsea veterans, a fine body of men who fought for their country, but they are not the sort of men you would bring into your household to help cook the dinner if His Royal Highness honoured you by dining with you. Therefore I maintain that, while many of these correspondents have no doubt valuable opinions in various branches of agriculture, yet being large farmers and agents of large estates they entertain a well-known objection to small holdings. Large farmers, it is well known, have an objection to small holdings. So, however valuable the opinion of the correspondents may be on agricultural subjects generally, other people's opinions may be of greater value on this particular subject.

One of the agricultural correspondents for Lincoln is Mr. Frankish, a well-known agriculturist, who was a large farmer, and, I believe, a very successful one. He was Secretary to the Chamber of Agriculture of the county, and is a member of the Tariff Reform Commission. Mr. Frankish says— There is not now any difficulty in obtaining small holdings, but there are few places in Lincolnshire, except Holland, where they pay, and even there they arc said to be overdone. I suppose that is a slap at me. But Mr. Bellwood, of Kirton Lindsey, states that there is a keen demand for small holdings, and adds— I had fifty applications a fortnight ago for a farm of thirty-two acres, from a single advertisement. The Lincolnshire Small Holdings Association received applications up to the end of April for 2,540 acres in one small area where the Crown Lands happen to have property, and every application has been carefully examined, and each applicant can be conscientiously recommended.

As to the county of Norfolk, the Board's correspondent, a large and respected flockmaster, says that land is readily obtainable. Five miles on one side of that gentleman's house and ten miles on the other side are two farms, which were bought by the Norfolk Small Holdings Syndicate. There was some difficulty in buying them. It had to be done quietly, because if the object of the purchase had been known they would have been run up to a prohibitive price. These two farms were readily lot for the purposes of small holdings, and the Norfolk Small Holdings Association has already received applications for 200 more acres in the district, which they are unable to satisfy.

There is another case about six or seven miles from Newmarket. A well-known and much respected gentleman gave up his farm, and though it had been declared that by far the largest proportion of the land in that district was unsuitable for small holdings, the farm was acquired by Mr. C. D. Rose, M.P., and by him divided into allotments, which have been readily lot. I would add that 800 more acres could be let in that district if the land could be obtained. It is not tenants who are wanted, it is the land. If suitable land could be procured on fair terms, then people would come forward and offer to cultivate it, of course, not all over England, but wherever there was a chance of making a living out of it.

LORD SALTOUN

Has the Crown built houses on their land?

EARL CARRINGTON

That is a very large subject.

THE DUKE OF RUTLAND

What is the average rent charged by the Crown?

EARL CARRINGTON

I could go into figures, but it would take too much time, and I could tell the House what I have done in my own two penny-halfpenny way on my estate; but I hope I may be allowed to go on with my speech in my own way. There is another correspondent, our old friend John Treadwell, who always attends agricultural meetings in a white hat, and is, no doubt, well-known to your Lordships. He is a very large farmer near Aylesbury, in the county of Bucks, and a member of the Bucks County Council, and he says— There is no difficulty in obtaining allotments; there is more difficulty in finding tanants for present allotments. Yet not six miles from his house there was a piece of land, south of Aylesbury, where five or six cottages were built some years ago, and when the principal landowner in the neighbourhood was asked for land by the occupiers of the cottages, he said— No, I do not want your cottages, I did not build them, and I do not want cottages in the neighbourhood. Fortunately there was another man in the neighbourhood who had a little land, and through his instrumentality gardens and pieces of land were added to the cottages to the great advantage of the people who lived in them. Mr. Treadwell seems never to have heard of this. On another occasion there was a great demand for land in villages close by Aylesbury, and that has been met, but I have no doubt that if the matter were gone into it would be found that there is still a demand. Then Mr. Tread-well seems to have forgotten that there was a farm of 600 acres belonging to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, just below Aylesbury. This land was let to a man in a neighbourhood on a lease, and he would not part with an acre of it. But the people wanted land, and they rented some old grass land in a very inconvenient position some three or four miles down the road at over £3 an acre, and they continue to cultivate the land, and pay that substantial rent. That was a case where a demand for small holdings was met by a landlord with a blank denial.

The report of Mr. Rew shows that the correspondents state that there is a demand for small holdings which has not been satisfied in a great many counties in England and Scotland, and even in South Uist. Where that is or what it is I do not know. The reason why there has been a change of agents in the management of the Crown lands is that there were only forty-four small holdings on an acreage of 62,000. If a Government honestly think they can initiate a new policy, they must have people to work with them who are con amore with themselves, and share in the aspirations and hopes of those responsible for the policy of the present Board of Agriculture. I parted on good terms with the old agents, and, while they were not obstructive, I felt that there was no great anxiety or desire on their part to help the villages and bring the people back to the soil. I hope the result of the change will be that a very large number of people will be brought back to the land, and that almost a peaceful revolution will be effected on the Crown estates.

I have not attempted to answer everything the noble Marquess has said, but I was very pleased to hear the generous words which fell from him at the end of his speech, and to feel that we have heard the last, in this House at any rate, of Party recriminations. I recognise that noble Lords opposite have worked in the past and are now working for the establishment of small holdings, and I hope that the Small Holdings Bill now before the House of Commons will receive your favourable consideration if and when. it is brought up from another place.

THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN

My Lords, I think we are very much indebted to the noble Marquess for the debate which he has initiated to-night, if it were only for the very instructive and amusing speech to which we have just listened, illustrated as it has been with the copious anecdote which always interests your Lordships, and of which in unlimited quantity the noble Earl is the fortunate possessor. In the first place let me say one word with regard to his last sentence. The noble Earl said he was glad to understand that your Lordships were going to give a favourable reception to the English Small Holdings Bill when it comes up to this House. I do not know what remark of the noble Marquess he may have interpreted to mean that he was in favour of the Small Holdings Bill; at all events, I did not hear the noble Marquess say anything which would bear that meaning.

We are indebted to the noble Marquess for this, that we have now elicited from the noble Earl what the real meaning of this document is. I must say I thought it was intended to be a fair representation of the evidence and of the Report of the Departmental Committee of 1906, and I propose to limit the few remarks which I shall make to your Lordships entirely to the Report of that Committee. The noble Earl the President of the Board of Agriculture has been so good as to tell us that this document was not intended as a fair representation of that Report or of the evidence, but that it was simply a collection of remarks in the Report or in the evidence which can be said, quite apart from the context, to sustain the position taken up by the Prime Minister. So far as the noble Earl spoke of the Prime Minister, I think he was rather under a misapprehension in supposing that there could be any irregularity in taking exception in this House to a speech by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister's speech was not delivered in the other House of Parliament but in the country; and, moreover, while we readily accept the noble Earl's statement that the Prime Minister did not intend to refer to any landlord or landlords, I must confess that that rather surprises me when I look at this Paper, which is confessedly drawn up as a vindication of what the Prime Minister said. Will the noble Earl look at page 13, Appendix No. XII. It is there stated— They(i.e., the nail makers at Catshill in Worcestershire) endeavoured to obtain land from a neighbouring landowner — we all know that that referred to Lord Plymouth — but a rule on the estate was not to let more than a quarter of an acre to labourers; that was found insufficient. That certainly is a reference to an individual landowner, and I believe that Lord Plymouth, had he been present, would have been able to give an excellent explanation of that rule on that estate. The noble Earl has thrown considerable doubt on the credibility of his own correspon- dents. He differs entirely from Mr. Rew, who says that— The Board of Agriculture in their staff of correspondents possess facilities for obtaining information by well qualified observers distributed in every county of Great Britain. And Mr. Rew adds later on that they are— A body of competent observers. The noble Earl accepts the statement of any correspondent who happens to agree with him, but those who do not so agree, and who are apparently by far the larger number, he says are large farmers or land agents, and there is some reason or another why in regard to this particular matter your Lordships should not attach much credence to their evidence.

With reference to the experiment which is being made on the Crown lands, I agree that this is not the occasion to ask the noble Earl to inform us as to the terms on which those lands are being let, but I venture to hope that he will, when the experiment has been carried out to some considerable extent, give us a clear return showing (1) the rent of the land; (2) the cost of equipment; and (3) the amount of rent which has to be charged to the small holders to cover the cost of equipment. If the rent charged is not sufficient to cover the whole cost then these are charitable small holdings, and I understood that it was stated in the other House of Parliament that the Government had no intention whatever of instituting charitable small holdings. I can only say that my experience in these matters differs from that of the noble Earl. I have tried small holdings, and I am sorry to say that I have had more cases of failure than of success. At all events I hope we shall be clearly informed what the amount of rent is. I have no desire to be a pessimist, but I believe that for a holding of thirty or forty acres, after you have incurred the cost of a house and buildings, you will find it very difficult indeed to obtain an economic rent.

*THE EARL OF ONSLOW

My Lords, there is one thing which is always refreshing about the speeches of the noble Eral the President of the Board of Agriculture, and that is the candour which characterises them. He has told us to-night that this document which has been laid on the Table of your Lordships House, and which we thought was going to be the absolute proof positive of the contentions of the Prime Minister the other day, is really nothing but an ex parte statement. Now, knowing that, we look upon it in an entirely different light; we regard it in the light of those political pamphlets which are issued by party organisations on both sides, in which passages from the speeches of Ministers or of those opposed to them are culled without reference to the context. I should like to ask the noble Earl whether he would be prepared to incur the expense of producing the case for the other side, with which I should be very glad to furnish him. I think it would be considerably more expensive than the production of this little pamphlet; it would certainly be much more voluminous.

The noble Earl, I was very sorry to hear, threw considerable doubt on the accuracy of the information given by the agricultural correspondents of his Board. When I was President of the Board of Agriculture I was responsible for the appointment of these gentlemen, and I venture to say that upon all matters agricultural within their respective districts they would be accepted by everybody who knew them as competent judges and competent witnesses, and if they do not happen to have the enthusiasm for small holdings which the noble Earl himself has he must forgive them if they state their free and candid opinion. At any rate the noble Earl has relied upon those opinions in the document which has been quoted to-day, and I venture to think that if we are going to rely upon official evidence on this question we can rely more safely upon the information of the agricultural correspondents of the Board of agriculture than on any other witnesses in the country.

The noble Earl said that the Prime Minister did not mean in his speech to accuse anybody; it was neither landowners, land agents, nor county councils who gave a blank denial to the demand for land. But I thought my noble friend the Lord President of the Council told us distinctly the other day that what was in the mind of the Prime Minister was, not the refusal of the landowners to provide the land, but the apathy of the county councils whose duty it was to put in force the Small Holdings Acts, A remedy is, I believe, to be provided for this state of affairs. It has been described by a distinguished member of the Government as "ginger." Ginger is to be applied to these local authorities, and the hope of His Majesty's Government is that it will have the effect of stimulating them to the discharge of duties which they are supposed to have hitherto neglected.

I do not intend to be guilty of a breach of order by discussing a measure which is not before this House, but I am told that the Bill which has been introduced in another place is largely founded upon the Report of the Committee over which I had the honour to preside. I can only say that this reminds me of the pictures of some of your Lordships in Vanity Fair; there is some slight resemblance, but in all other respects they are caricatures. The noble Earl said it was good news to hear from the noble Marquess the Leader of the Opposition that landowners are willing to provide land. It would have been much better news to many of us who are interested in this question of small holdings if the noble Earl had shown us how we are to find the equipment for these holdings. The real difficulty is not in securing the land, but in finding the money to erect the necessary buildings.

The noble Earl said just now that it is not tenants who are wanted, but land. I venture to say that if the noble Earl, on behalf of the Government, will undertake to find the money for providing the equipment he will have more land offered to him than there will be tenants to take it. The noble Earl says there is an "unsatisfied demand" for small holdings. I do not deny it; but what is wanted are fully equipped small holdings. If the noble Earl would provide some means by which cheap loans could be granted to landowners more small holdings would be created in that way than in any other. I say, in conclusion, that the only way in which you can multiply small holdings in this country, and that only in places where they can be satisfactorily and economically cultivated, is by equipping them with such buildings and houses as will enable them to be properly farmed by those who may occupy them.

*THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (The Earl of CREWE)

My Lords, perhaps I may venture to recall the House to the real origin of this debate, which seems to me to have been overlooked by the last two noble Earls who have spoken. What happened was this. On 25th April the noble Marquess the Leader of the Opposition called attention to a particular speech made by the Prime Minister, and I notice that in Hansard the debate is headed "The Prime Minister and Small Holdings." The object of the noble Marquess, as we understood, was to prove that in his speech at the Holborn Restaurant the Prime Minister had gone beyond the facts of the case in, as the noble Marquess thought, accusing the landowning class generally of refusing land for the purposes of small holdings. In fact, the noble Marquess used the words— the kind of organised refusal among landlords which has been suggested in the Prime Minister's speech. We endeavoured to show that the Prime Minister had never suggested anything of the kind. He had, no doubt, in his mind cases whore landlords had refused land. He also, as I endeavoured to point out at the time, had in his mind the refusal of county councils in certain cases to make use of the Small Holdings Act. But he certainly never suggested that there was anything like an organised refusal on the part of the landowners of this country to allow land to be used for the purpose of small holdings.

As we understood, the noble Marquess asked for further information to see if we could substantiate what the Prime Minister had said. We certainly never understood that the noble Marquess had asked for a complete précis of all the information which had been given from every point of view before the various Committees and Commissions which have sat on this subject. If any noble Lord will study Hansard he will see that no such demand was made. What my noble friend was asked to do was to produce the warrant which the Prime Minister had for saying in his Holborn speech that— There is a whole mass of official testimony to show that a strong demand for this type of holding exists in many parts of the country, and if only this demand could be satisfied, the young men and the best men in the villages, instead of setting their faces in despair towards the town, would be glad to remain at home. We hear of this unsatisfied land hunger very largely in the East of England, we hear of it in the Midlands we bear of it in the Southern Counties. We understood that we were asked to substantiate what; the Prime Minister had said, and therefore it seems to me scarcely reasonable to complain of this Return as being what the noble Earl who last spoke described as a political pamphlet of a purely one sided character. It carries out the demand made by the noble Marquess and no more. If we had supposed that a complete précis of all the evidence that had been given was demanded, I have no doubt that my noble friend behind me would have supplied it.

The noble Earl who spoke last offered to put the case for the other side, but surely that was unnecessary. The case for the other side has already been supplied by the noble Marquess who opened this debate; he picked out all the extracts favourable to his contention, as ho had a perfect right to do, and put his case with the greatest fullness, and certainly we have no complaint to make on that score. But I do trust that we shall be acquitted of any intention of unfairness because of the form in which this Memorandum has been prepared. We simply intended to meet a personal attack on the Prime Minister for certain words which he had used in a speech outside.

The noble Marquess the Leader of the Opposition seemed to think that a denial of land for small holdings was no longer a denial if there was a reason for it which reasonable people would not consider a bad one, and he pointed out that in a great many cases landlords were prevented from forming small holdings by the necessity of handing over those holdings fully equipped. I entirely agree. He also pointed out that there were, as is well known to your Lordships, cases in which the granting of a farm for small holdings might mean the disturbance of an old and valued tenant. That also is perfectly true; but it does not alter the fact of the denial, and the man who wants a small holding does not particularly care what is operating in the mind of the landlord. What interests him is to know whether he can get the small holding or not. If it is the case that landlords cannot or will not go to the expense of equiping the holdings, that no doubt may be a reason, but it cannot always be taken to be a justification.

In this matter of equipment I think we must all agree that it is absurd to suppose that landlords will parcel out a farm into small holdings, and erect expensive houses and buildings upon each holding, without the prospect of obtaining at any rate a certain interest upon the outlay in the form of a larger rent for each piece than could be allotted to that piece when the whole was treated as one farm. But, on the other hand, I should not be prepared to lay down as a general proposition that even where the landlord could obtain, as he undoubtedly could in many parts of England, a very considerably increased rent from cutting up farms into small holdings, in every case he would be either able or willing to provide the outlay. In a great many cases landlords have not got the money, and even where they have it it is more simple and easy to leave it in an investment than to put it into what after all is a somewhat precarious form of investment — namely, farm buildings. Therefore to say this is to bring no charge against landlords as a class. But there is also the fact to face that, where small holdings could have been economically created by an advance of public money or possibly by borrowing, in a great many cases of that kind landlords have refused to move; and I do not necessarily blame them myself, because one knows that often the circumstances do not permit of their doing so.

The noble Earl who has just sat down spoke with a warmth which we all felt did him credit of the correspondents of the Board of Agriculture. These gentlemen are, as we all know, locally chosen for their high character and expert knowledge. But my noble friend behind me was, I think, perfectly within his right in pointing out that they do, in very many cases, belong to that class of persons who, I do not say are hostile to small holdings, but who certainly would not go out of their way to encourage small holdings. It was very far, I am sure, from the intention of my noble friend to cast any imputation on these gentlemen, of whom I know he has a high opinion; but I am bound to say that it is not in my judgment overstating the case to say that, taking the large farmers of England as a class, they do not look favourably upon the institution of small holdings. As regards the Crown lands, my noble friend is also, I think, entitled to point to the remarkable demand that has been made. When it is found that in almost all the districts where Crown lands are situated there is a demand for small holdings, surely it is not a large assumption to infer that a similar demand must exist elsewhere.

As to the inquiries of Lord Camper-down, my noble friend tells me that in his Report of next year he will endeavour, as far as possible, to give detailed information of the kind for which the noble Earl has asked. He fully recognises, and we must all recognise, that if these small holdings are to be of any value as an object lesson to the country they must be proved to be established on economic principles.

In conclusion, let me say that noble Lords opposite appear to assume that we belong to a class of people who are prepared to proceed in a perfectly reckless manner in this connection, in the belief that you have only to cut up land into small holdings in any part of England and plant tenants upon it and the wilderness will immediately blossom like the rose; but I can assure the House that we have no such belief. We are aware that there are considerable districts in this country which are not fitted for the creation of small holdings, and I can assure the noble Marquess and the House that our one desire is to proceed with all due caution, enlisting local knowledge and experience wherever we can; and we are confident that, by the means which we hope to place at the disposal of the local authorities, there will be a substantial advance in the next few years, and I hope for many years to come, in the direction desired.

LORD HERRIES

My Lords, as this is a subject in which I have taken a great interest for many yours, I hope I may be pardoned for troubling your Lordships with a few remarks. I should like to ask the noble Earl the President of the Board of Agriculture if there has been any great number of applications in respect of Crown lands in the East Riding of Yorkshire. There are, I believe, 18,000 acres of Crown lands in the East Riding, and as we have been told that there is a great demand for small holdings in that county, it would be interesting to know if there have been many applications for small holdings in the case of the Crown lands.

I wish also to defend the County Council of the East Riding of Yorkshire against the accusation that seems to have been brought against many of the county councils in the country, that they did not take pains, when the Act of 1892 came into operation, to discover how far small holdings were required. I remember very well what we did in the County Council of the East Riding to endeavour to bring about an extension of small holdings. We advertised in all the local papers and sent round circulars inviting those who wished to have small holdings to communicate with us. Not only did we do that, but we formed a sub-committee and drew up certain rules for their guidance. Those rules were drafted by two Liberal Members of Parliament representing the county, and it is not, therefore, likely that the rules were too exacting or hard on applicants for small holdings.

In return for all this effort, which we continued to make for twelve months, we only received nineteen applications. A committee went down to make inquiries on the spot and entered into negotiations to purchase a farm of sixty acres in order to satisfy the applicants, who included six labourers, five carters, cow keepers, cab proprietors, and others. The farm was offered to us for £2,700 or £45 an acre but when they found what they would have to pay in rent, allowing interest for the buildings, they one and all declined to go on with it. That experience shows that it is not the rent that operates against the creation of small holdings, but the cost of the equipment.

In the village in which I reside there are only four or five cottages to which land is not attached; and in the neighbouring village, which entirely belongs to me, there are three cottages only out of forty which have not land attached. If I can get £1. an acre and 2 per cent. for buildings and equipment, I am quite satisfied, not because it pays me, but I take into consideration the whole estate. I could quote the case of a family on my estate, who not many years ago, in the seventies, had a small holding of 30 acres. The father and his three sons are now farming 1,500 acres. Again, a shoemaker, who originally had a small holding, now farms 120 acres. That shows what an advantage it is to have proper men on the small holdings, and to give them a chance of rising in life. That has been my object; but I do not think that if we obtained from the towns men unaccustomed to the land and put them into houses and gave them 5 or 6 acres to manage it would be at all successful.

In conclusion, I would say that I shall be only too glad to do all I can to assist the Government in bringing forward a Small Holdings Bill so long as the ratepayers are saved from any charge being placed upon them in respect of it, and so long as the scheme is not a charitable one. I hope that, whatever measure is passed for small holdings, it will be on those terms, for t believe it would not otherwise be for the advantage of the country generally.

EARL CAWDOR

My Lords, there have been one or two statements in the course of the discussion this evening which I do not think we can allow to pass without some observation. Ono is the statement made by the noble Earl the President of the Board of Agriculture, who protested, as I understood, against the speech of the Prime Minister being commented upon in this House. That is an entirely new doctrine and one which might lead to very great inconvenience. The noble Earl will remember that the speech in question was not delivered in the House of Commons, but at the Holborn Restaurant, and the suggestion that we should be debarred from making any comments in your Lordships' House upon a Prime Minister's statement because he does not happen to be a Member of this House is one which I do not think has ever been put forward before by a responsible statesman.

Another statement of importance which was made by the noble Earl who spoke last from the Government Bench, as well as by the noble Earl the President of the Board of Agriculture, was with respect to the Memorandum now under discussion. I am bound to say that I heard at first with great astonishment the statement of the noble Earl the President of the Board of Agriculture that this Memorandum was intended to be a one-sided document, and I think the noble Earl took credit to himself for having succeeded in making it such. The noble Earl the Lord President, I understand, takes the same view, that it was not intended to give in this Memorandum a real statement of the facts, but only a statement of part of the facts.

*THE EARL OF CREWE

My point was that the noble Marquess asked for a Memorandum, if one could be prepared, which would show that the Prime Minister's statement was not an exaggerated statement. We endeavoured to supply that, and that alone.

EARL CAWDOR

I quite understand that to be the view of the noble Earl, but I venture to say it is a view which will not commend itself to your Lordships. It is perfectly impossible that the Prime Minister's statement can be justified if you are to take only small pieces of the evidence given at previous inquiries, utilise those, and suppress the rest. That is the course which has been taken. May I read to your Lordships the heading of this Memorandum which, I suppose, is intended to explain what the Paper is? This professes to be a— Memorandum of evidence contained in Parliamentary Papers as to the demand for allotments and small holdings and as to the difficulty of obtaining land for those purposes. Is any one going to seriously contend that you can give a proper return of the difficulty of obtaining land for these purposes when you suppress every single bit of evidence you can find to show that land can be easily obtained, and when you pick out little bits of evidence favourable to one side and put that forward as the whole of the story? I say that this Memorandum on the face of it professes to be an accurate and complete summary of the evidence under this head, but the inside of the document does not tally with its title. I think it is a strange justification of what I think was a very grave charge made by the Prime Minister against a large class in this country.

THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (The Marquess of RIPON)

I deny that.

EARL CAWDOR

I am glad to hear the noble Marquess's repudiation. I will tell the noble Marquess why I was led to that conclusion. The noble Marquess will remember the debate on 25th April last, when my noble friend on my left (the Marquess of Lansdowne) made his speech. The noble Marquess made it perfectly clear then what was in his mind in referring to this speech. He asked what was the meaning of that remarkable passage in which the Prime Minister dwelt upon the dislike of the squire to see such common things as cabbages and pigs and unseemly outhouses. That was the description, that the squire and his friends "in society" found something displeasing in the appearance of those familiar objects, and that it was because those familiar objects were displeasing that this denial took place.

I adhere still, in spite of what the noble Marquess the Leader of the House says,. that that was at that time a distinct charge made by the Prime Minister against a large class of the people of this country. There were more passages of the same kind all pointing in that direction. There was a passage containing a reference to the increase in the number of game-keepers and to the time wasted in discussions as to the hares and pheasants of the landlords. And you find passages of that kind in close juxtaposition with references to derelict farms and deserted villages. I adhere to my view of that speech and what that speech meant, but I accept absolutely and with much pleasure the statement of the noble Marquess that the charge is not put forward to-day by His Majesty's Government, and that it is practically withdrawn.

But with regard to the Memorandum, I assert that the impression derived from the statements made in it in reference to twenty out of the thirty counties referred to is absolutely counter to the impression conveyed by the evidence as a whole. Your Lordships will remember that the President of the Board of Agriculture undertook to lay before the House what he described as a condensation of the evidence. Why is there not a proper condensation of the whole of the evidence? Why is there merely a part extracted for the purpose of showing one side of the facts?

I wish to say a word on the very peculiar manner in which the noble Earl has dealt with the correspondents of his Department. After describing them as men of the greatest mark and renown in agricultural circles, he suggests that their evidence is not to be relied upon on questions of fact. I do not think the noble Earl's correspondents will thank him for the character he has been good enough to give them. I think we ought to have some further explanation of the rather strange transaction which has taken place with regard to Messrs. Clutton and Messrs. Smith. The noble Earl gave your Lordships to understand that he and these gentlemen parted as the best of friends. He did not, it seems, kick them downstairs, but, at any rate, he gave them notice to quit. I should like to know whether it is alleged that they neglected or refused to carry out any instructions given them by the Board of Agriculture with respect to small holdings. We have been told that the Memorandum was intended to be one-sided. It would be unfortunate, however, if this document which bears on the outside a statement leading one to suppose that it contains something diametrically opposite from what is found within, were taken as a precedent for future memoranda.

THE MARQUESS OF RIPON

My Lords, we have had an interesting discussion, introduced in a very courteous speech by the noble Marquess opposite. I regret that his example in tone and spirit has not been followed in the speech to which we have just listened. It has been said that my noble friend the President of the Board of Agriculture took exception to allusions being made in this House to a speech by the Prime Minister outside. That was not the case. It is not contended that in this House or in the other House Members are not entitled to make remarks upon a speech by a Minister. It has always been done, and it is a perfectly proper thing to do. What my noble friend meant was simply to lay stress on the disadvantage of making such criticism here, where the Minister could not answer for himself. I think my noble friend, if he will pardon my saying so, went beyond the usual Parliamentary practice in this matter, but that is what he meant.

As to the famous Memorandum which has given so much debating amusement to noble Lords opposite, I am inclined to think that the objection which is taken to its construction must arise from a forgetfulness of what was the demand made upon the Government in regard to the Papers that were to be supplied. What we were asked to supply was the evidence, or a summary of the evidence, upon which it was supposed the remarks of the Prime Minister were founded. We were not asked to give all the evidence on the whole subject, and if we had given the other side of the question we should have given something on which my right hon. friend's speech was not founded. That was what was asked from us, and that is what we have given; and I must take leave to say that I do not think it is in accordance with the usual courtesies of this House that we should be told in those circumstances that we were suppressing evidence. That is not language to which in this House we are accustomed.

The noble Earl went on to say that he accepted the interjection which I ventured to make. I repeat what I have already said, that my right hon. friend the Prime Minister did not intend to make a charge against a particular class in the country, and his remarks were not directed against a particular class, but were intended to state—what I believe is true—that great difficulties have been found in obtaining land for these purposes, and that the law at present in force has been a failure, and upon that was founded the view of the Government that it is necessary to amend the law and to take further steps to secure the establishment of small holdings.

I am very sorry that the discussion should have wandered off as it has done. I do not think that these preliminary skirmishes are very advantageous. Hereafter an important measure upon this subject will come up from the other House—I venture to prophesy that it will come up. There are people in the country who are constantly saying that your Lordships are bitter opponents of the creation of small holdings, and that you will throw out or otherwise destroy this Bill when it comes up. My Lords, I do not believe that those statements are correct. I believe, on the contrary, that your Lordships will give to this Bill when it comes here an impartial and fair consideration. I said so when last I had the honour of addressing your Lordships on this question. I do ask you, therefore, not by continual discussions of this kind to strengthen in the minds of those who do not love this House the notion that you are the opponents of small holdings.

THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN

My Lords, in accordance with notice I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether any answers have been received from county councils in reply to the letter of the Board of 13th March last. In March last the noble Earl sent a Circular Letter to the county councils requesting them to inform him what steps they had taken with regard to small holdings in the past, and also to give their views as to any demands that might exist for small holdings at the present time; and the noble Earl undertook that when he had received a number of these answers from the county councils he would lay them on the Table. I cannot help supposing that he must have received a good many replies by this time, and I beg to ask whether he will lay them on the Table.

EARL CARRINGTON

The Circular issued on 14th February was sent to ninety-five councils, and I have so far received fifty-four replies. The majority merely promised to pay full attention to the Circular, but in twenty-five instances it is stated that nothing at all has been done since the last Return made in 1902. The whole of the information will be laid as soon as it is complete.

THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN

I am, of course, satisfied with that answer, but I would like to ask the noble Earl whether, in the replies he has received, there has been any answer to the question whether or not any demand exists at the present time.

EARL CARRINGTON

I shall be glad to put the answers that have been received at the disposal of the noble Earl at any time he may like to see them. I do not wish to keep anything back. But I think it would be better not to publish the replies as a Paper until such time as they are complete.

House adjourned at a quarter past seven o'clock, to Monday next, a quarter before Eleven o'clock.