164 BRITISH RURAL LIFE AND LABOUR. 



the difference in the percentage of interest charged by the 

 Government to the labourer. Government could advance 

 the money necessary at 3 per cent., and if the labourer were 

 charged 5 per cent., there would be a profit for the purpose 

 indicated of 2 on every 100 advanced. If the sanitary 

 authority in each district were made the local authority 

 for the purposes indicated, a small department under the 

 Local Government Board might be created for purposes of 

 general inspection and control. Four or five inspectors 

 would be sufficient, in my opinion, for England, for instance, 

 and the institution at headquarters in London of a small 

 correspondence department might prove, by affording 

 facilities for giving information of inestimable advantage 

 to the agricultural labourers throughout the country. In 

 support of these views I should like to quote an opinion of 

 the late Professor Fawcett : 



" - How much more powerfully/ he said, - would prud- 

 ence be stimulated if a definite prospect were held out that 

 a labourer might, in course of time, by means of his saving, 

 secure a small landed property ! The value of such an 

 acquisition is not to be estimated by the amount of wealth 

 with which it enriches him. It makes him, in fact, a differ- 

 ent man ; it raises him from the position of a mere labourer, 

 and calls forth all those active qualities of mind which are 

 sure to be excited when a man has the consciousness that he 

 is working on his own account.' 



" The present time is, I think, most favourable for the 

 institution of a thoroughly good and sound allotment 

 system. I believe that, with legislative authority, local 

 boards would find ample facilities for the acquisition of 

 land for allotments without any resort to the objectionable 

 principles of compulsion, and that with a steady persistence 

 in the plan I have lightly sketched, the clouds of agricultural 

 depression would be speedily dispersed, and the position 

 of the farm labourer throughout the country would be 

 enormously improved. Such, at least, is my earnest hope 

 and belief." 



Lord Randolph Churchill was especially interested 

 in this communication, and gave the writer two more 

 interviews on the subject of it. The last of these inter- 

 views was held on ist October 1886, the day before 

 what may be called his lordship's remarkable and 

 historic speech at Dartford. By his special request 

 the writer was asked to formulate the especial points 

 which he was of opinion should be introduced into the 

 speech. The following are the points which were put 

 into a letter the same day, prefaced by the request that 



