The land and the labourers : facts and experiments in cottage farming and co-operative agriculture

Front matter

HK Land AND THE LABOUKtttt

C.W.STUBB.S.M.A.

t4 .>.'(» J BOUGHT WITH' THE INCOME

Contents

PAGE

THE LAND AND THE LABOURERS II

CO-OPERATIVE SMALL FARMING t& /^

Preface To The First Edition

The two quotations which I have placed on the back of the title-page of this book— one from an address by the Bishop of Durham to the Co-operative Congress at Newcastle, and the other from a letter by the Prime Minister to Mr. Joseph Arch — sufiSciently indicate, I think, the purpose which I have mainly in view in the publication of the following pages.

In the prospect of early Land Legislation, this expression of Mr. Gladstone's opinion with regard to the merits of Small Farming in England is most important, and is indeed likely to meet with frequent quotation, during the discussions of the next Parliamentary sessions, by those Land Reformers, to whom, like myself, a radical revision of the Eng;lish Land Laws seems mainly desirable in the interest of the labouring population, whose gradual divorce from the soil and consequent pauperisation during the last century and a half has been the parent of some of the most lamentable and mischievous of existing social evils.

It will be evident, however, that the following pages are not intended to support the view of those who anticipate as a result of such legislation the general establishment of a system of Peasant Proprietary in England, much less of those who are now advocating with so much vigour and enthusiasm what is termed viii PREFACE.

Land Nationalisation, without sufficient care, however, as it appears to me, to define accurately which of the three utterly antagonistic schemes — (i) Compensatory, (2) Confiscatory, or even (3) Collectivist — they understand by that very high-sounding phrase. A radical revolution in the English Land System I do without doubt most earnestly desire to see ; but I trust that it will be a revolution such as that anticipated by Bishop Lightfoot, "beneficent, social, and economic," by which, among other good results, the rural labourer and cottage farmer shall in adopting co-operative institutions be able to .secure for himself all the advantages of Peasant Proprietary without any of its correspond- ' ing evils.

Granborough Vicarage, Bucks, January, 1884.

Preface To The Fourth Edition

I HAVE added to this Edition, in the form of Notes and Appendices, certain material which seemed necessary to give the book completeness, both as a record of experiments in co-operative agriculture, and also with a view to bring the history of the Allotment movement up to date.

The lately issued Parliamentary Return of Small Holdings in England, which shows a greatly increased acreage devoted to Allotment farming during the last few years, is, as I have pointed out in the text, most encouraging as an evidence, not so much perhaps of the practical value of the Allotment Acts of 1882 and 1887, as of the salutary influence which the public expression of opinion on the .subject has exerted upon

PREFACE. ix

the Landlord class in persuading them to grant increased facilities for landholding by labouring tenants.

I am still as firmly convinced as I was six years ago — my last two years' pastoral experience in a great Northern town has only deepened my conviction — that the key to the solution of most of the social problems of our great towns in reality lies in the country, that there are few of these problems whose solution is not largely dependent upon such a revision of the English Land System, as shall make it once more economically advisable to increase the amount of English Labour applied to English Land, and concurrently with that to raise permanently "the standard of living" of the English Agricultural Labourer.

Within the last few days a new hope for the future of co-operative industry in the rural districts has been given to social reformers by the vast scheme propounded by General Booth, involving as it does the establishment of large farm communities, and Labour Colonies, as an integral part of his plan for " the salvation of society".

"Back to the Land! " is a cry to which, in former days, I have been little disposed to listen. Nearly twenty years close intimacy with the conditions, social and economic, of rural life, have taught me that success in agriculture, even on a small scale, demands qualities of head and hand and heart, which, to say the least, it is quite idle to expect from a merely miscellaneous company of the loafers and slummers and labourfailures of town life. It is too often forgotten by the glib Land Reformers of our city debating clubs, that the efficient agricultural labourer is not in reality the dull

X PREFACE.

chaw-bacon sort of person of a Punch cartoon, but one of the most highly skilled of English workmen. To expect, therefore, that the town labourer who has failed can be readily transformed into the rural labourer who will succeed, is to expect miracles.

But, then. General Booth, at least so it is claimed on his behalf, has already worked miracles, and can perhaps do so again. At anyrate, in answer to my current objection, one of his chief advisers writes to me that "the 'General' can guarantee absolute loyalty, implicit obedience, and a wonderful spirit of self-denying love and comradeship among his people ". These are new data, I confess, for the solution of the problem. All the co-operative experiments of which I have given a record in the following pages have failed, when they have failed, owing to deficiency of moral qualities and defects of character.

If General Booth succeeds — as I heartily pray to God he may — in the social revolution which he projects, he will only add force to my long conviction of the truth expressed in these two maxims which I will beg my readers now to ponder, and to read once again as they close the pages of this little book— "The best ultimate success often comes of noble failure. Undying hope is the secret of social vision." "Great social transformations never have been, and never will be, other than the application of a religious principle — of a moral development — of a strong and active common faith."

CHARLES W. STUBBS.

PEASANT FARMERS

AND

CO-OPERATIVE AGRICULTURE.

Chapter I. The Land And The Labourers

" You tell me you have improved the land, but what have you done with the labourers ? " — SiSMONDI.

" Much food is in the tillage of the poor, but there is that is destroyed for want of judgment." — Prov. xiii. 23.

" We are told that the first effort of the state in agricultural matters should be to increase the produce of the land. I firmly deny that. I quite admit that it is an important thing to increase the produce of the land, but it is not the most important. It is not so important as maintaining in happiness and respectability a large class of our fellow subjects." — Lord Salisbury : S:peech at Hitchin, Dec. -jth, 1882.

Twelve years' work as a country parson in a Buckinghamshire village have forced upon me two very definite conclusions. They are these : I. That of the many urgent social problems with which at the present moment Englishmen are confronted, there are few whose solution is not largely dependent upon such a revision of the English Land System, as shall permanently raise the social and economic condition of the English rural labourer.

II. That any permanent elevation of the rural labourer's standard of comfort is impossible, unless there can be effected either (a) a great increase in the proportion of small agricultural holdings in England ; or (f) the adoption of some system of agriculture, probably co-operative, which shall once more make it economically advisable to increase largely the amount of English labour applied to English land.

It will be my object in the following pages to justify these two conclusions.

In the present chapter, however, I desire to do two things — [a) to give a record of certain facts, with regard to the cultivation of small holdings by rural labourers, which have come under my own immediate observation during the last few years ; and (S) to call attention to certain deductions which it seems to me may be fairly drawn from these facts.

And, first, as to the facts.

Economic Results of Small Husbandry.

At the close of the year 1873, I divided a portion of my glebe land (22 acres) into half-acre allotments among my labouring parishioners, at an annual rental of 66^. an acre. I have retained two lots, that is to say, an acre of this ground, in my own hands. I have worked it on exactly the same method of husbandry as that of the remaining allotments. That is to say, being heavy clay land, not over well drained, but sloping for the most part to the south and west, the kind of crops we grow are wheat, beans, oats, potatoes, mangold wurzel, carrots, garden vegetables, and so forth. Now, being interested in collecting what facts I could as to the results to be gained from small as opposed to large culture, I have kept accurate accounts during some years of the outgoings and incomings on my one-acre farm, and what has been my result? In the last six years of agricultural depression, my net profit on the acre, after allowing fully for rent and taxes, seed, labour, and manure, has been ;^3 %s.

Let me give in a tabulated form an abstract of my balance sheets from 1878-1883.

Year. Outgoings, Incomings. Net Profit.

1878 10 06 16 60 656

£n I "4 £92i 14 o ;^2o 12 8 Average annual capital employed per acre

(outgoings) _;^i2 3s. 6§rf.

Average Annual Incomings .... £\'^ izs. 4^. Average net profit or something like 28 per

cent, on the capital invested . . . ^^■^ 8s. ^\d.

It may be perhaps useful to give the full balance sheet for a fairly typical year. I will take 1 88 1, because in that year one of the leading agriculturists in my neighbourhood, Mr. W. Smith of Woolston, did me the honour to criticise publicly my results, and I can thus give his criticism and my reply.

Here is the Balance Sheet for 1881 : —

Outgoings.

£ s. d.

Wages of Labour . . . ,679

Manure . . . . . . i 10 o

Rent and taxes . , . . .360

jfiz 17 S

Incomings.

Wheat, 5 sacks ....

•

5 °

Potatoes — 55 bushels at 2s. .

5 10

Twelve bushels damaged potatoes, sold for pigs

Wurzels, 30 cwt., Carrots, 3 cwt .

I IS

Beans, 5 bushels ....

•

I

Straw (one ton) ....

•

2 10

12 7

Net proht per acre ^ . . j£^ 137

A Farmer' s Criticism.

And here is Mr. Smith's criticism : —

There are a few items very questionable. Take potatoes, said to have been sold at 2s. per bushel. Why, I bought fine potatoes last autumn at \s. 6d., and the market has been clogged ever since. Now take straw at £2 I ox. Why, I bought a lot last autumn, delivered home at ;^2. Now look to manure; bought £j 10s. for beans and roots, including potatoes. Half his land that must get manured to keep on under such a cropping would need 10 tons of London dung yearly, which at 6s. 6d. per ton at the railway station would cost quite 8y. per ton on the land, or ;^4 for the half-acre. These three items corrected stand thus —

£ s. d.

From 55 bush, of potatoes at 6(/. . .176 From I ton straw . . . . . o 10 o Extra for manure . . . . . 2 10 o Now I must put in interest of money on jQ\z . , , . . . o 12 o

Total 4 19 6

Loss I 5 II

Mr. Stubbs's balance . . . • 3 13 7

Mr. Stubbs must show a better Balance Sheet, or it is of no use for him to come out to show us how to farm. We cannot all buy cheap dung, neither can we all sell dear potatoes or dear straw, and tenants' capital ought to. bear interest."

The following was my reply : —

" In the first place let me say at once that of course I am quite prepared to allow that my Balance Sheet would be valueless as an example of average results if it can be proved that I am farming under exceptionally favourable circumstance of purchase or sale. But this is a contention which it seems to me Mr. Smith has singularly failed in proving. He asserts, it is true, that I have sold my potatoes too dear and bought my dung too cheap. But where is the proof of this ? I put down my potatoes at 2s. a bushel. Mr. Smith says that I ought to have put them down at i.f. 6d. Why ? Because he bought potatoes at that price last autumn. But I was giving the results of my farming, not of his. And I contend that 2S. was a fair "times price " about here for potatoes of my sort last Michaelmas

THE LAND AND THE LABOURERS. ij-

I know several labourers at any rate who sold their potato crop from the same field at 2$. Cxi. a bushel, and more than one who got 3^. But for my part I do not argue from that that they were exceptionally lucky in their sale. I only suppose that my tenants were a little better tradesmen than their landlord, were more successful, in fact, in acting up to that business maxim of selling in as dear a market as you can and buying in as cheap an one, which I suppose from his argument Mr. Smith does not accept.

" So again as to straw. Mr. Smith says a ton of my straw is not worth £2 10s. because he can buy straw, delivered home, at £2.

" In reply I would say that not only did I get that value for it, but I knew that my purchaser was giving the same price elsewhere, and that other of my labouring tenants sold their straw at the same price, to be fetched away, to the regular dealer, and therefore, I suppose, to be sold again at a profit. Moreover one of my tenants, who has only just threshed his corn, has been lucky enough to sell it at ^3 los. And then Mr. Smith must know very well that allotment straw is straw, and not straw, couch grass, and thistles.

"Then, again, as to manure. Mr. Smith says /want ten loads of London dung at ;^4 to keep my land in good heart. I reply, why in the world should I buy ten loads of London dung at ^4, when I can get ten loads of Gran borough dung at half that price with as good results ?

" By the way, on this question of manure I should much like to ask Mr. Smith, who I am told is a practical man, two practical questions.

" I. If he considers ten tons of London dung the fair allowance per acre for farming land once a year, what does he think of the farming operations of his neighbours herei8 THE LAND AND THE' LABOURERS.

abouts, whose land, I venture to assert, seldom gets more than five loads to the acre, once in three or even four years ? and

" II. What is the special agricultural advantage of the large dung heaps by the roadside, which I so continually see left subject to the action of wind and rain for weeks, with all the best of the ammoniac liquid, assisted by neatly cut channels, draining away for the fertilisation of the weed crop of the nearest ditch ?

" I remember to have read somewhere in an Agricultural Gazette that the waste in farmyard manure in England was equal in value to another rental of the land. When I see the wealth of these roadside dung heaps so unintelligently squandered away, I confess I am not surprised to hear it.

" Lastly, as to interest on capital. That may no doubt be a fair point. At any rate I will concede the \2S., or even the 13^. 7</., if he likes, and put my net profit at only £^t, per acre, especially if in return he will do me the favour of stating the exact economic reason why tenants' capital should bear interest at five per cent, over and above the fair wages of its superintendence and the net profit on its use."

The criticism of practical men is always valuable, and so I was glad to get Mr. Smith's letter. Whether my reply was satisfactory I must leave my readers to judge for themselves. The following remarks, however, made by two other of my critics last year, were not quite so easy to answer as those of Mr. Smith, but are none the less characteristic. The first remark was made by the son of a farmer (I am glad to think no parishioner of mine) to the man who is good enough to act as baihff to my one-acre farm — " Why ! what a fool you be, John, to let your parson get anything off his land ! " And the second remark was made to myself by an ingenuous member of the capitalist class — " By Jove, Vicar, what a good plan this of yours is to raise the rents of the land ! "

There is another fact, however, that is worth attention in the above Balance Sheet. It will be observed that the produce of wheat upon the half-acre was 5 sacks, that is to say, at the rate of 40 bushels or 5 quarters to the acre. On the page of the account book from which the Balance Sheet is copied, I observe that I have made the following notes : —

" In this year John Norman grew 9 quarters of oats on his allotment (i acre) ; and William Tompkins having a dispute with a farmer as to the likelihood of yield of wheat on his allotment, agreed to give the farmer everything over 7 quarters that was threshed out. On measurement at harvest he had to pay the farmer I bushel of wheat. In other words, his yield of wheat from i acre was 57 bushels." It will be

JO THE LAND AND THE LABOURERS,

interesting, I think, to compare these figures with one or two well-known stanJard results, I will give them a tabulated form : —

Produce of -wheat per statute acre in bushels. Farmer's average in Granborough . '25

English average 26

French average 13

American maximum 19

Mr. Lawes' (high scientific farming) average . 36 Allotment average in Granborough . . 40 Mr. Lawes' maximum . . . . • 55 Allotment maximum (W. Tompkins) . .57 English maximum 60

This contrast in point of yield between their own allotments and their masters' fields does not fail, of course, to strike the men. There is a field in this parish which was held some time ago by a farmer at a rental of \\s. an acre. He gave it up because he could do nothing with it. " It was," as he said, "completely wore out." For this field the labourers now give ;^4 an acre. But they think they do badly if they do not get the allotment average given above, of 40 bushels of wheat to the acre, while the farmer is satisfied with 25 bushels at most. When one remembers, too^ that in very many cases the rent given by the farmer is little more than half that given by the labourer, can we be surprised that the labourer and the farmer differ very widely as to the true cause of the agricultural depression of the last few . years ? And that leads me to the first deduction which I venture to draw from the foregoing facts. It is this. That one chief and much overlooked element in the agricultural depression of the last few years has been ihe labour-starving of the land on the part of the farmers.

The sequence of events in this neighbourhood, at any rate, is not difficult to trace. The agricultural labourers' agitation of ten years ago, under the leadership of Mr. Arch, succeeded in raising the wages from \2S. to 15^. a week. The farmers protested that they could not afford to pay the extra wage. They were not able, however, to resist the pressure of the Union, but were compelled to give the extra 3^. a week. But they avenged themselves, as they thought, by employing less men. At first the plan seemed every way excellent. A farmer employing 10 men, knocked off" 4, and thus saved £2 %s. per week on his labour bill. To the remaining 6 men he gave the extra wage of 35-., or an

THE LAND AND THE LABOURERS.

increase of \%s. on his weekly labour bill. The net gain per week to the farmer in money was thus 30.y., and his net loss in men was 3 labourers. But the money was in his pocket, and the men -were out of sight. This was all very well for the farmer ; but how about the land ? "Ay, there's the rub!" It was starved for lack of labour. Then came the wet years, when more than ever labour was needed. But the labour was not now to be had. It had been driven out of the country. The census of 1 88 1 showed a large decrease in the population of all the villages in Buckinghamshire. The land got fouler and fouler, and the natural result followed. I know of a field of 4 acres on one farm in this parish, which in old days used to bear fair crops, which gave a total yield last year of 22 bushels of wheat, or a little over 5 bushels to the acre. During the whole of these years, however, under exactly similar conditions of weather, the labourers' allotments prospered, with a net result, as we have seen, in one case at any rate, of nearly 28 per cent, on the capital invested.

So much for my first deduction. But there are others. For example, with regard to the advantages of small holdings, to my mind three things at any rate are clear.

First, that the possession of a small holding of land adds very largely indeed to the annual income of the rural labourer.

Secondly, that small proprietorship, or even tenancy of the soil, exercises a very beneficial influence upon the moral character of the agricultural labourer.

And, thirdly, that the system of large allotments or small holdings is worthy of extension for national reasons, as tending to restore that lost balance of property in the soil which is so necessary a factor in the civil policy of any soundly constituted state. Let me say a word or two on each of these points.

Economic Results of Small Husbandry.

That the occupation of an allotment of land, if only say half an acre in extent, 'adds very materially to the annual income of the rural labourer, the figures which I have given above I hope conclusively prove. Incidentally, moreover, this fact suggests a solution to one of the most difficult problems which the rural reformer has to face. I mean the Cottage Question.

Labourers Cottages.

When Sir James Chettam in George Eliot's " Middlemarch " takes objection to Miss Brooke's generous schemes for cottage building on the ground that labourers can never afford to pay a rent sufficient- to return a fair interest on the capital invested, and yet amiably allows that " perhaps after all the work may be worth doing," we are, most of us, I suppose, ready to give some sympathy to the impetuous outburst of Dorothea's indignation when she cried — "Worth doing! Yes, indeed, I think that we deserve to be beaten out of our beautiful houses with a scourge of small cords — all of us who let tenants live in such sties as we see round us."

But after all Sir James Chettam is only typical of his class. "That good cottages cannot be built to pay," is the common burden of all the squires. The echo of it we have all heard in Lord Salisbury's recent article in The National Review on " The Housing of Labourers," where he states that two-thirds only of the cost of cottage building can be regarded as a commercial investment, the remaining third must be regarded as a charity and benevolence on the part of the landlord. And the squires, I believe, are in the main right. Good cottages, apart from charity, are impossible for the labourer without increased wages. But there is one consideration on this point I would venture to make.

Might not the landlord himself do something towards increasing the wages by insisting upon the higher rent ? As the farmer has already found the increased labour bill of the last few years a severe strain upon his capital, a still further increase would only be possible by a corresponding reduction in farm rent. As, however, the landowner in this case would recoup himself for the loss in farm rent by a corresponding gain in cottage rent, it does seem a little strange that so obvious an economic adjustment should not long ere this have been made, at least by those landlords who have so far recognized the responsibilities of property as to provide efficient cottage accommodation on their estates. Their omission to do so I suppose is in reality a part of that reluctance, still so common in the rural districts, to take any step which would seem to substitute in rural class relationships the principles of commercial justice for those of feudal beneficence. Is it not time, however, that some protest should be made against an economic arrangement which in effect compels the farmer to pay to the landlord what is in reality due to the labourer, in order not to interfere, on the one hand, with that luxury of paternal protection which an improving landlord at present gains by being enabled to grant at somebody else's expense to the agricultural labourers on his estate efficient cottages below cost price, and, on the other, with the argument, so convenient to those landlords who have no desire to house their labourers well, that " cottage-building does not pay " ?

There remains, however, the method, suggested by the results attainable on successful allotment farming given above, by which, as it appears to me at any rate, cottage property even at the present rate of wages can be made to return a fair interest on the capital invested.

Let the landlord grant to every cottage tenant an allotment of land of not less than one acre. A cottager who cannot afford to pay 2s. a week for a cottage only, can well afford to pay 3 J. dd. or 4^., or even more, for the same

7 HE LAND AND THE LABOURERS. 27

cottage with an acre of land attached. It is my contention, therefore, as the second deduction I would desire to draw from facts, that although a cottage without land cannot, under present conditions, be built to pay, a cottage with land can.

Moral Results of Small Holdings.

The cottage question leads, of course, directly to moral considerations.

For how, I would ask (and I think here I have a right to put the question from my experience as a country parson),— how under such physical conditions as those which I find surrounding me in my daily work among my labouring parishioners — where, to put the matter as briefly as possible, in a village of fifty cottages we have only three with more than two bed-rooms, and seventeen with only one — is it possible for me to expect from my parishioners any approach to that " pure religion breathing household laws," which it is yet my duty astheir pastor to endeavour to inculcate ? How, with mere huts for homes, can the distinctively home virtues find any room for growth, parental love, filial obedience, household thrift, cleanliness, modesty, chastity, self-respect, purity, and simplicity of heart? Can I honestly ascribe the meagre growth of these virtues among my people solely to failure of individual will, or must I not rather trace them to circumstances of life and sleep so degrading as to leave no moral room for their growth ? What provision can there be under such conditions of home life, not only for the three essentials of physical life, pure air, pure water, pure food, but also for the three essentials of spiritual life, " admiration, hope, and love " ?

But again, look at the moral results of the occupation of land by the rural labourer from another point of view, namely, its influence on the promotion of thrift. And here I would desire to lay stress upon a principle which it appears to me is too much overlooked by those who are always preaching thrift to working people. It is this, — There is a stronger motive to save created by the desire of investment in the present than by the desire of insurance against the future. In other words, we shall be more sure of success in any attempt to encourage thrift and frugality among labouring people, if we can show them any means of

THE LAND AND THE LABOURERS. zg

lucrative investment, open to those of them who will exercise self-denial and economy, than if we were merely to point out to them the advantages of insuring against the probable misfortunes of the future.