772 
Profit-Sharing in Agriculture. 
lifted out of the range of party politics, and may be discussed 
impartially as a means — and, as I venture to think, a very 
potent means — for the improvement of agriculture in this 
country. 
There are two ways of wedding the labourer to the soil : 
(1) by helping him to purchase a small holding through the 
action of the State or otherwise; (2) by allowing him to share 
the profits which may be realised by the farm on which his 
labour is employed. 
In Northumberland, the material condition of the agricul-. 
tural labourer is so far satisfactory that I cannot think of the 
name of a single person of common-sense who has ventured to say 
that the labourer's position would be improved by being trans- 
formed from a hind into a peasant proprietor. His condition, 
in all material respects, when compared with that of the 
owners and occupiers of very small holdings, is distinctly good. 
Engaged from year's end to year's end at a regular upstanding 
wage of from 15s. to 16s. per week, from which no deduction is 
made on account of either holidays or sickness, enjoying, in 
addition, the occupation of a good house and garden rent-free, 
from 1,000 to 1,200 yards of potatoes, and the power on 
many farms of having a cow kept for him throughout the year 
at the rate of three shillings per week, • the agricultural labourer, 
so far as his material condition is concerned, may well excite the 
envy of the great majority of peasant proprietors : who, in return 
for far greater toil, longer hours, and a more laborious existence, 
are unable to command so large a proportion of those necessaries 
and luxuries which go to make up the comfort of life. 
' So much importance is attached, and rightly attached, to the possession 
o£ a cow by every household with a young family, that it may be interesting 
to those who are unacquainted with the customs of the North to know what 
are the privileges of a Northumbrian hind as regards a cow. 
The farmer is ready, at the hind's request, to provide a year's keep and the 
necessary accommodation for a cow, in return for the payment of 3.<. or is. a 
week. For this sum the farmer allows the cow to run out at pasture in summer, 
and in winter he gives the labourer a sufficient allowance of artificial 
food. 
The advantage to the labourer of this arrangement is greater than may at 
first sight appear. An average cow will give the labourer a gross income of 5«. to 
6«. a week, or even more, and, over and above this, the hind has the skim milk 
for his own use. He has, therefore, every inducement to try and obtain pos- 
session of a cow. Many of the Northumbrian hinds take advantage of this 
privilege, when they have the money, to purchase a cow, and many more would 
do so if the necessary amount required to buy the cow could be obtained. On 
the profit-sharing farms in Northumberland to which I am about to refer the 
farm is prepared to advance to the hind, out of" the reserve fund," the money 
required for the purchase of a cow, on arrangements being made to pay off the 
loan by instalments, for which a lien on the cow and the undivided " bonus " 
offer a sufficient security. — A. G, 
