156 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 



a boy grows up, there are a few years intermission till, as a young 

 man, he has two children ; then poverty again, till the children 

 grow up, and, finally, at best, a penurious old age barely lifted 

 above the poverty line." 



The subsidiary sources of income for which Dr. Mann gave 

 due allowance included allotments, and pig and poultry 

 keeping. He found at this time that the profits to be 

 obtained from allotments were not great because 



" most of the allotments lie too close to the Duke of Bedford's 

 park, where game is strictly preserved ; and the result is that 

 havoc is usually wrought amongst the crops sown ; and that 

 neither the keeping of pigs nor cows was encouraged by the 

 Duke of Bedford." 



The Duke of Bedford has the reputation of being one of 

 the best of English landowners, and when further publicity 

 was given to the above statements in my book The Tyranny 

 of the Countryside, published 1913, the Duke's lawyers 

 controverted them by pointing out that in 1912 out of the 21 

 acres in allotments eight were cultivated with corn, which 

 carries with it the implication that game was not so abun- 

 dant as in 1903 ; and that the keeping of pigs or poultry 

 was not discouraged, but that " leave has to be obtained." 



As to wages, the Duke of Bedford's lawyers stated that one 

 of the Duke's men received 283. a week in 1913, whilst eight of 

 them received 153. with extras that amounted to an average 

 of 5 IDS. a man. It is not quite clear if these extras were 

 subject to a deduction of four weeks 'wages during harvest 

 time, which would then leave only 2 105. net. However, 

 rents and rates would swallow up the harvest money, thus 

 leaving only 153. a week for the maintenance of a family. 



Dr. Mann ends his interesting paper with the following 

 significant passage : 



" As at present existing, the standard of life on the land is 

 lower than in the cities ; the chances of success are less and of 

 poverty are greater ; life is lessr interesting ; and the likelihood 

 of the workhouse as the place of residence in old age, the greater. 

 It is evident that the outcry against the depopulation of the 

 country and the concentration of population in the towns must 

 remain little more than a parrot-cry until something is done to 

 raise the standard of life, and hence the standard of wages in our 



