WASTED OPPORTUNITIES OF FRUIT-GROWING. 



965 



ployed.' Our legislators pass laws and do not ask how they are 

 administered or whether they are administered at all, our local authorities 

 are too busy with parochial politics to bother about the welfare of the 

 country, our professors of political economy spin barren theories at which 

 practice mocks, our working-class leaders are blind to the real interests 

 of their class, our schools teach smatterings of everything under the sun 

 to children left in blank ignorance of all that it concerns them to know. 

 Then, with the whole machinery of social life and social conduct shaking 

 itself to pieces with unbalanced vibrations, and consuming its energy 

 in internal friction, we look helplessly at a population degenerating 

 physically and socially, and listen contentedly to a show debate about 

 some quack remedy." 



The following is the substance of the speech delivered by Mr. Jesse 

 Collings and referred to in the above quotation from The Times. He 

 said that for years past there had been steady migration of the population 

 from the country to the towns ; and the towns and manufacturing 

 districts had long since reached the limits of their powers of absorption, and 

 were now dangerously overstepping them. In the meantime agricultural 

 land was crying out for labour and to a large extent remained uncultivated. 

 Hence arose the great social problem which we were trying to meet by 

 improved housing and palliatives of various kinds. They were but 

 palliatives, and if a thousand persons were to-day provided for in London 

 within a few months the flow of the human tide would make things just 

 as they were before. It was suggested that local authorities should 

 acquire land for cultivation, and here, on firm, sound, economical principles, 

 he agreed with Mr. Keir Hardie. But that had already been done and 

 done effectively. It was twenty years since he introduced a Small 

 Holdings Bill, and in those days no attention was paid to the subject. 

 True, the importance and necessity of the question were not so great, but 

 in 1889-90 the Government of the day passed a Small Holdings Act 

 giving local authorities fall and effective powers to do the very thing it 

 was now suggested should be done. The administration of the Act was 

 placed in the hands of county councils. Well, you can bring a horse to 

 water, but cannot compel drinking. With the exception of two or three, 

 county councils had almost ignored that measure. The Worcester 

 Council, under the chairmanship of Mr. W. Bunn, put the Act into 

 operation, seeing its importance from an economic and social point of 

 view. A concrete instance was perhaps more useful than declamation, 

 and he proceeded -to show how the object had been secured. The first 

 venture was the purchase of a farm of about 800 acres. It was poor 

 land, and farmers had worked it unsuccessfully. It was cut up into 

 holdings of from five to thirty acres. He knew the district thoroughly. 

 Years ago misery, destitution, and starvation were rife there, and 

 expenditure was large on outdoor relief. To-day there was not a man or 

 woman on the rates, and the population were thriving and happy. Seven 

 or eight cottages were erected on these holdings. If he could induce hon. 

 members to visit the occupiers, all of whom were his personal friends, 

 they would find them in pretty, comfortable cottages, in which no one 

 could object to live, surrounded by all the indescribable qualities of home. 

 These men not only worked themselves, but employed others. One of the 



