112 OUR ENGLISH LAND MUDDLE. 



farms should exact no fees — might, indeed, 

 pay an atom of pocket-money per week to 

 well-conducted and industrious pupils ; and 

 should be designed to train not so much 

 farmers as farm workers. Without any 

 doubt, if there were too many graduates 

 to be absorbed by British farms, the Over- 

 seas Dominions would be more than will- 

 ing to have them, and to pay a premium 

 to recoup any deficit (if there were one 

 on the cost of training them. 



3. Supplementary to these training farms, 

 there should be encouraged a system of 

 agricultural apprenticeship, under which 

 farmers would take over school lads as 

 apprentices. 



well be tried as an experiment, each managed by a first-class bailiff 

 assisted by a cowman, shepherd, and wagoner, all the work of the 

 farm being done by boys chosen from elementary schools in which 

 manual instruction was in vogue. The boys would give their work 

 in return for their keep, and, perhaps, one shilling a week pocket- 

 money. The instruction was designed for labourers' sons, and con- 

 tinuation classes would be arranged for them." 



This is substantially my proposal in a timid form. What is most 

 noticeable to an outside observer cf English political life is the extreme 

 timidity of the agricultural interest. Long habit has reconciled it 

 to be the Cinderella of the nation's household. In Australia and 

 America one is accustomed to a very clamorous Farmers' Party, and 

 that makes, by contrast, the conditions here seem more remarkable. 



