xii THE DEPRESSION OF TRADE 217 



are thus formed which are to some extent self-sufficing. 

 When we get a community of that kind, consisting of 

 various classes, all living together, but scattered about on 

 the land, they all tend to support each other. Each one 

 finds employment or assistance from the other. There is 

 a market at hand, and we do not see that absurd system 

 of sending all the butter and poultry to a place a hundred 

 miles away, while a person who lives a mile from the 

 farmer is obliged to get his poultry and butter from the 

 town. That is what they call economy of production, but 

 it is certainly waste in distribution. 



Results of Peasant Cultivation. 



The amount of loss involved by this driving the 

 labourers from the country to the towns is also brought 

 out very strongly by the evidence of a Tory landlord, who 

 has repeated it several times, and I will take it therefore as 

 correct. In Buckinghamshire Lord Carrington has land 

 which he lets out in lots to labourers. He has about 

 eight hundred of these allotments already in the hands of 

 labourers and others, and he has stated publicly that of these 

 allotments the average produce is 33 an acre more than 

 the produce of the same land in farms. Therefore, as far as 

 these allotments are concerned, there is a positive gain to 

 the country on every acre of land to the extent of 33 a 

 year. Some years ago, in 1868, when produce was not 

 nearly so valuable as it is now, there was a Government 

 Commission on the employment of women and children 

 in agriculture, and it obtained evidence that the average 

 produce of such allotments all over the country was 14 

 an acre more than that of farms. Then, again, there is 

 a curious piece of evidence recently given by an English 

 clergyman (Rev. C. W. Stubbs), also living in Buck- 

 inghamshire, who has a large amount of glebe lands, 

 which he lets out to labourers in acre or half-acre 

 allotments, and it is a noticeable fact that, the land of the 

 district being pretty good wheat-land, the labourers all 

 grow wheat upon their allotments. They have been 

 doing so for nine- years, and Mr Stubbs has kept an 



