140 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 



risked their livelihood at a time when wheat was 255. a 

 quarter. The last return showed that corn crops occupied 

 nearly half the acreage, and the loss from rents had been 

 less than IGS. per 100. 



Another development af the Small Holding movement 

 in South Lincolnshire which takes us to a later date might 

 be suitably mentioned here. At Moulton 1,000 acres 

 sparsely grazed and badly cultivated were leased to the 

 Moulton Parish Council by the Crown. This Parish Council 

 consisted almost entirely of working men and the Crown 

 Land Commissioners very wisely spent no less than 8,000 

 on the equipment of these holdings in the form of cottages 

 and farm buildings. These holdings ranged from allot- 

 ments of one rood to small farms of 79 acres, though roughly 

 speaking the small holders might be divided into two classes, 

 those with 4 or 5 acres working for employers, and those 

 with 20 acres to 50 acres working entirely for themselves. 

 It is interesting to note here that whilst the rural exodus 

 continued through this decade and the next the population 

 of the rural area of Spalding increased from 10,751 in 1901 

 to 23,497 in iQ 11 - 



In this chapter I have dealt largely with the rising hopes 

 of the rural workers to get a footing on the land and a roof 

 over their heads by means of the Parish Councils Act. 

 Two years afterwards, by 1896, farm workers seem to have 

 been reduced to the lowest depth of despondency during 

 the whole period of agricultural depression. Nearly every 

 vestige of a trade union had died out, 1 and as these died 



1 A letter addressed to me from the Registrar (Sept. 25, 1919) con- 

 tains the following information : 



" In the case of the Eastern Counties Federation Register No. 639, there 

 appears to have been a Union registered in 1890 under the name of the East- 

 ern Counties Labour Federation, and a statement accompanied the Return 

 for that year to the effect that since the end of 1895 the Eastern Counties 

 Labour Federation ' now stands Nil (as regards membership) and the 

 funds, after paying all dues and demands, are completely exhausted.' " 



Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb in their History of Trade Unionism (1901) 

 give the number enrolled as 17,000, which, if intended as an index of 

 membership in that year, was apparently inaccurate. 



I am also informed by the Registrar that returns ceased to be furnished 

 after 1894 by the London and Counties Labour League (the old Kent and 

 Sussex Labourers' Union) and the National Agricultural Labourers' 

 Union, the trustees of which were then given as Messrs. Arch, Baker, and 

 Lush. 



