The President's Address at General Meeting. 433 



present scarcity of labour iu particular districts, the most influential 

 of which have been the rapid expansion of trade, the successive 

 alterations which have been made in the law of parochial settlement, 

 and, above all, the great increase in the facilities and cheapness 

 of locomotion. The change, though gradual, has been progressive, 

 and appears likely to be permanent, and it is an interesting 

 question how best to deal with it. A noble lord at an agri- 

 cultural dinner in one of the midland coimties, a few months ago, 

 was so much impressed with the importance of the question as to 

 suggest the possibility of applying the co-operative system to 

 agricultural labour. Judging from the newspaper rejiort of his 

 lordship's speech, he did not do more than throw out the idea 

 with the view of eliciting discussion. It does not appear to me that 

 the labourer could fairly be allowed to participate in the farmer's 

 jDrofits in good seasons unless ho could also bear his share of the 

 farmer's losses in bad ones, which he would clearly be unable to do ; 

 but there is one mode in which the farmer might admit his labourers 

 to be partners in his farm, which would, I think, go some way towards 

 surmounting the present labour difficulty, and would, with little cost 

 to the farmer, be of incalculable benefit to the labourer. The plan I 

 would suggest is that the farmer should let to a certain number of his 

 labourers sufiicient grass-land to enable each of them to keep a cow, 

 and that these allotments should be the rewards of industry and sobriety. 

 I have for some years watched the ojperation of two modes of carrying 

 this out, one plan being to let to each man a separate field of two or 

 thi'ee acres, which is much preferred by the men ; the other being to 

 give up two fields of considerable size to a number of men, who use 

 one in common as a summer pasture for their cows, and mow the other 

 for hay, the separate holdings being marked out by a post at each 

 corner. The latter method is suitable for large farms on which it 

 might be difficult to find or to form a sufficiency of small fields for 

 separate allotment. Both plans work well. The cost to the farmer is 

 trifling, as the cottagers are always willing to pay a fair rent for the 

 land. To labourers with families the advantage of keeping a cow can 

 hardly be overrated, but I do not think it advisable to confine it to 

 fathers of families, as a steady married man without children is thus 

 enabled to save a little money, and becomes so much interested in his 

 cow and his pig that the alehouse is no longer the chief source of 

 attraction during his leisure hours. Those who are best acquainted 

 with agricultural labourers will, I feel confident, bear me out in the 

 assertion that a man who can ensure regular work, at fair wages, with 

 sufficient laud to keep a cow and a pig, and obtain even a moderately 

 good cottage among the friends and neighbours whom he has known 

 from his childhood, will seldom bo found willing to exchange his 

 VOL. III. — S. s. 2 F 



