154 



MY LIFE 



[Chap. 



— how would any lover of his country think that such lands 

 ought to be dealt with in the best interests of the whole 

 community ? 



Surely, that the very first thing to be done should be to 

 provide that all workers upon the land, either directly or in- 

 directly, should have plots of from one to five acres, in pro- 

 portion to the amount of such waste and the needs of the 

 inhabitants. The land thus allotted to be held by them in 

 perpetuity, from the local authority, at a low rent such as any 

 farmer would give for it as an addition to his farm. In 

 cases where the amount of common land was very great in 

 proportion to the population, some of the most suitable land 

 might be reserved for a common pasture, for wood or fuel, 

 or for recreation, and the remainder allotted to applicants 

 from adjacent parishes where there was no common land. 



If it is asked, how are the various landowners and owners 

 of manorial rights to be compensated } there are two answers, 

 either of which is sufficient. The first is, that they would be 

 fully compensated by the increased well-being of the com- 

 munity around them. Whenever such secure holdings have 

 been given by private owners — as in the cases of Lord Tolle- 

 mache and Lord Carrington — pauperism has been abolished, 

 and even poverty of any kind greatly diminished. And as 

 landlords pay rates, and diminished rates mean increased 

 value of farm land, and, therefore, increased rents, the land- 

 lords would be more than compensated even in money's 

 worth. Again, where it has been fairly tried, the surrounding 

 large farmers, though at first violently opposed to such small 

 holdings on the ground that they would make the labourers 

 too independent, ultimately acknowledge that it greatly benefits 

 them, because it surrounds them with a permanent population 

 of good and experienced labourers, who are always ready at 

 hay and harvest time to work for good wages, and thus save 

 crops and secure them in the best condition when they might 

 otherwise be deteriorated by delay, or totally lost for want of 

 labour at the critical moment during a wet summer. Such a 

 constant supply of labour benefits every farmer, abolishes 

 to a large extent agricultural depression, and thus secures 



