The Rural Labourer 



of the labourers' cottages instead of letting 

 them to the farmers, acts most beneficially. 

 I know that there are great difficulties in the 

 way, and I realise particularly how hard it 

 might be to originate the practice; still it could 

 be done by degrees. And I believe that 

 labourers would be willing to pay direct to 

 the landowner a higher rental than now pre- 

 vails, especially if a good garden were in- 

 variably attached to the cottage ; and thus 

 cottage finance might in time be put on a 

 business basis. 



Further, on principle I think it is derogatory 

 to the labourer not to pay rates, and if it be 

 constitutionally wrong for a man to pay taxes 

 and have no vote, so is it wrong for a man to 

 vote and pay no taxes ; but in practice there 

 are many difficulties in the way of making all 

 cottage holders pay their rates. 



(3) How to secure to the labourer better 

 wages, especially in those counties where little 

 increase has occurred. Again, as in the two 

 preceding problems, must small holdings be 

 referred to. If small holdings become avail- 

 able to the extent their advocates would wish, 

 and a smart labouring man can make a living 

 equivalent to ^60 a year off his 20 or 30 acres, 

 that man will not work for another man for ^45 

 per annum. The development, therefore, of 

 small holdings on sound lines should affect 



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