2o6 LAND REFORM 



parts of a system. The farmer mainly relied on the 

 other two classes for the labour required on his farm. 

 A letter written in 1 785 by one of the class of 

 yeomanry — so numerous at the time— illustrates a 

 common practice. It states : — 



'• I have now several cottagers at my farm whom 

 I have constantly employed for some years past, and 

 who enjoy the rights of common in the manner I have 

 described. These labourers I take a pleasure in 

 encouraging. ... I have also an advantage in it, 

 because I can more safely rely on the industry and in- 

 tegrity of such as have some degree of prosperity and 

 character to lose, and who have some distant prospect 

 some time or other of becoming farmers themselves, 

 than the poor devil who is destitute of every kind 

 of property and whose only hope is to be able to work 

 and gain a subsistence from day to day as a slave as 

 long as he lives." ^ 



In later times, however, the farmer, being himself 

 reduced to a tenant and pressed by his necessities, 

 objected to the labourer owning land, but wanted all 

 his time and energy in return for a weekly wage. 

 The territorial classes, whatever may be said to the 

 contrary, as far as action goes, retain the same objec- 

 tion to the present day. This is shown by the luke- 

 warm manner in which legislative proposals for giving 

 land to the men are always met. The Allotment 

 Bill received scant support, and had been some years 

 before the House before it became law in 1887. It 

 required seven years of effort before the Small Hold- 

 ings Act of 1892 was passed. The objection referred 

 to is markedly shown by the manner in which this 

 Act has been treated by County Councils up to the 



' "Observations on P^nclosures of Waste Lands," 1785. 



