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The Cottntry Gentleman's Magazine 



disorder and decay is revolting, and the 

 habitations of the poor are the furniture of 

 the estate. The terms on which money can 

 be borrowed on entailed estates might be 

 rendered more easy, and the purposes for 

 which it can be borrowed might be enlarged ; 

 but I cannot regard proposals of this sort in 

 any other light than as a feeble struggle for 

 the prolongation of a system which is doomed 

 to early and inev'itable extinction. 



THE LABOURER AND THE LAND LAWS. 



The reports of the Commission appointed 

 to inquire into the employment of children, 

 young persons, and women in agriculture, are 

 the true mirror of the condition of the la- 

 bouring classes depending on the land. No- 

 thing is disclosed in stronger colours in these 

 reports than this, that the dwellings of the 

 rural population urgently demand a very 

 general reconstruction. It would be hazard- 

 ous to assert in the face of those statements 

 that more than two-thirds of the existing 

 habitations are satisfactory, or susceptible of 

 improvement and enlargement. The last 

 census report for Scotland tells the same 

 story, and supplies some statistical details. 

 One-third of the population live in tenements 

 comprising one room only ; another third live 

 in houses with two rooms ; one-eighth only 

 possess dwellings with three rooms. There 

 is little distinction between the scale of 

 lodgings for the industrial and for the agri- 

 cultural classes. As far as the rooms are 

 concerned, dwellers in towns are provided in 

 the same way as dwellers in the country. 

 A comparison of the reports concerning 

 England with those concerning Scotland lead 

 me to believe that, with reference to house 

 room the two peoples are now much alike. 

 If a minimum of one-third of the agricultural 

 homes of Great Britain require to be rebuilt, 

 you have something like a measure of our 

 great necessity on the rural side. It is a 

 matter of building 700,000 cottages, at a cost 

 of 70 millions sterling. In regarding the work 

 that lies before us, two things strike me as 

 certain. The work cannot be done in any 

 considerable measure by the labourers, and 

 it must be barren of all direct remuneration to 

 the landlord. The agricultural reports are de- 



cidedly adverse to the old-fashioned freehold 

 cottage. Give the labourer a patch of soil 

 for himself or let him take it ; he will raise a 

 hovel which will too often become a scene of 

 overcrowding, dilapidation, slovenliness, and 

 every sanitary abuse. Build the labourer a 

 substantial and wholesome habitation, on a 

 garden and fixture allotment, and let him 

 become the proprietor of the place by a 

 course of industry and self-denial, there is a 

 prospect that it will be kept with decency 

 and pride. In the reports recently submitted 

 to Parliament, on the operation of building 

 societies, I do not find to what extent they 

 have spread to purely rural districts. I con- 

 ceive, however, that it would be much in the 

 interest of proprietors of land to encourage 

 the introduction of these agencies by becom- 

 ing shareholders, by recommending them to 

 the labouring classes, and by providing them 

 with freehold sites on beneficial terms, with 

 careful provisions, however, as to the quality 

 of the structures to be erected. 



I regret that I have not been able to refer 

 to the introduction of the co-operative prin- 

 ciple in the cultivation of the soil, or to the 

 acquisition of real property by the artisans 

 and workers in factories resident in towns. 

 The emancipation of the land from its present 

 tram.mels is, however, a desirable preliminary 

 to the former, and would prove a valuable 

 aid to the latter. The Parliamentary report 

 on building societies contains a vast mass of 

 information, in a rather undigested shape, 

 upon the effects of association in various 

 forms in enabling the working classes to 

 become possessors of new dwellings. The 

 happy innovation which is tlius being carried 

 out in many districts is, periiaps, scarcely ap- 

 preciated by the public. It appears to me 

 that by these agencies, aided by improved 

 legislation, the force of public opinion, the 

 enlarged authority of municipal bodies, and 

 the facilities of modern locomotion, the 

 benefits of real property may at no distant 

 date be made as open to the English opera- 

 tive as they are in any part of Europe, except, 

 perhaps, among the artisans in Germany and 

 Switzerland, who are engaged in cottage in- 

 dustries, or in rural flxctories, provided with 

 water power. 



