338 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



larger, scale, when such of our farm labourers as have the grit come 

 to emancipate themselves from : ' employment " and constitute 

 themselves free cultivators. For the community that means, not 

 only, as observed, larger production, but also greater contentment, 

 more happiness, a more settled state of things, a narrowing of the 

 ground unfortunately still open to class wars, and therefore an impor- 

 tant step towards satisfactory rural reconstruction. 



Mr. Jesse Collings relates, in his most interesting autobiography, 

 that in 1885, when he, in company with Mr. Joseph Chamberlain 

 (then still pronouncedly in his " Radical days ") visited, among 

 other places, West Lavington, in order to see with his own eyes and 

 hear from agricultural labourers' own mouths " how those labourers 

 lived and worked, and what they desired to ameliorate their condi- 

 tion," these men " told Mr. Chamberlain that their possible im- 

 provement was (1) in the better cultivation of the land ; and (2) in 

 enabling them to obtain bits of land on their own account." 



Accordingly, in the general election of 1885, it distinctly was the 

 promise of small holdings (" three acres and a cow ") that Joseph 

 Chamberlain put forward, in his " Radical Programme," which, 

 securing the votes of the to some extent newly enfranchised denizens 

 of counties, gave the Liberals the victory. 



We are endeavouring to bring such a change about — in our usual, 

 more or less bungling, way ; for since, in 1892, it first dawned upon 

 us that, sharing in that very common human ambition — nowhere 

 more strongly pronounced, so we make it our boast, than in our own 

 country — to be free, agricultural labourers might aspire to the 

 occupation of land for their own account — no matter whether as 

 their own property or as a hired holding — we have been trying to 

 supply to them the means of acquiring land, in a " bungle-bungle ' : 

 way, which has, at the close of a period of twenty-eight years, led 

 to only very meagre results, just because it was " bungle-bungle." 

 Not one-third of the acquirers of land so disposed of under the Small 

 Holdings Act are bond fide whilom agricultural labourers. The precise 

 figure is 32 per cent. The bulk of those benefited are publicans, 

 tradesmen, artisans and the like, that is, business men already 

 presumably doing well, and self-employing, who required the land 

 for accommodation purposes in connection with their business. 

 And that 32 per cent, does not mean new households or exploitations. 

 The men who took that land had their households already. The 

 reason for this disappointing outcome is, that we just offered the 

 land — and that not under either the most tempting or the most 

 equitable conditions; for a renting of land which pays for the 



