LACK OF COTTAGES 103 



other persons.2 This increases the shortage of cottages, and 

 in many cases these tenants benefit from the system under 

 which agricultural labourers receive a lower wage because 

 they are charged an uneconomic rent for their houses. 



" 158. The system of " tied " cottages — that is, the system 

 by which farmers purchase or rent with their farms a number 

 of cottages in which their stockmen, horsemen, and other 

 employees are housed — is frequently the subject of serious 

 criticism. We were told by the representatives of the Agri- 

 cultural Labourers' Union that a man living in a ' tied ' 

 cottage was not a * free man ' ; that, for example, he was 

 deterred from joining the Union more from the fear of 

 the farmer turning his wife and family out of their cottage 

 than from the fear of losing his employment, and that 

 he cannot leave his employment unless he is willing to 

 give up his cottage. In theory there is, no doubt, consider- 

 able force in the objections to the ' tied ' cottage system, 

 but it is exceedingly difficult to see how farmers could, in 

 many cases, conduct their business if the cottages which 

 have purposely been built near to their farm buildings were 

 to be occupied by men not in their employ, and their own 

 labourers were forced to find houses at a distance. The 

 problem would, however, be largely solved if more cottages 

 were provided by the local authorities. The proportion of 

 ' tied ' cottages would then become much smaller than it 

 is at present, and a labourer who was obliged to leave a 

 ' tied ' cottage would not experience the difficulty he does 

 now in finding a suitable house in the neighbourhood. 



*' 159. If the discharged sailor or soldier is to be attracted 



2 In his evidence before us Mr. Rowland E. Prothero, M.P., said : 

 " I have returns relating to some 1,700,000 acres and 22,000 cot- 

 tages, scattered over every county in England and Wales. All 

 are cottages built by agricultural landowners for housing the 

 agricultiiral labourer on the land ; every one of the 22,000. At 

 the present moment, only 13,000 of those are occupied by agricul- 

 tural labourers ; 3,000 are occupied by old-age pensioner's, 1,000 

 are occupied by Government and local-authority employees, some 

 350 are occupied by railway employees, and 5,000 are occupied by 

 the employees of trades and industries, other than agriculture, 

 who have not spent one farthing on housing their men. If you 

 apply those figures to the cottages throughout England, assuming 

 that there are some 600,000 agricultural labourers' cottages, that 

 shows that something between 200,000 and 290,000 of the cottages 

 built for agricultural labourers in England are occupied by other 

 people than the agricultural labourers themselves. . . ." 



