AFFORESTATION 



The Unemployed and 



THE LAND. 



mo my mind the I,and question, and its possibilities from 

 an unemployed standpoint, has not received that atten- 

 tion which is due to it. It is, therefore, with the object 

 of calling attention to a few important particulars 

 appertaining thereto that this pamphlet is written, not so much as 

 to the Agricultural side of the matter, as to the one of afforfestation. 

 Of course to the Socialist there can be no complete solution of this 

 question apart from the abolition of private ownership, and the 

 restoration of the land to the people. In the words of J. A. Froude: 

 "Land is not, and cannot be, property in the sense in which 

 movable things are property. Every human being born into this 

 planet must live upon the land if he lives at all. iJe did not asli 

 to be born, and, being bom, room must be found for him. The 

 land in any country is really the property of the nation which 

 occupies it," , I^et that be our ideal, but in the meantime it is our 

 duty to lay hold of each and eveiy reform that will carry us to the 

 goal we have in view. 



To enable the reader to grasp how important it is that some- 

 thing should at once be done in the direction of putting the land 

 to its proper use, a few general facts may not be out of place. 



It is estimated that there are about 77,000,000 acres of land in 

 the United Kingdom, of which about 35,000,000 acres are considered 

 as cultivatible. That nothing like this quantity is cultivated goes 

 without saying, the total arable land in 1907 being below fifteen 

 million acres. In fact during the past 30 years a reduction has 

 proceededf, with coniparatively slight yearly fluctuations, at the rate 

 of about one miljion acres per decade. Wheat, green crops, 

 afforestation, and the raising of cattle all show a decline. The 

 cultivator of the soil, with his wife and family, has had to give way 

 to the gdiiiekeeper and the stray shepherd. The breeding of game, 

 ki order that pleasure may be afforded the rich, is considered of 

 greater importance by those in authority than the one of the 

 cultivation of food. In 1860 nearly three-fourths of the wheat 

 consumed Jn tke United Kingdom was home-grown, but in 1886 it 



