OKAUFO ^QFCAllFOfy^ ian-# ^AavaaiH^ ^ME-UNIVEW//, ^lOS-ANCEtfj> ■^saaAiNn-avw ■ ft: O ^•LIBRARY =3 ^/MAINfl^ ^OJITCHO^ ^tllBRARYQ-r 4 4 ^"^^ ^ SO ■vERJ//) 7UDNOT. ^VOS-ANCElfju %hainih$ ^OKAIIFO y 0Awaain^ ■F-CAUFOflfe, 5 ^— M i* £7 y tfAavaan-# UIBRARYQc mow-so^ "^sa3AiNn-]\\v IVEBJ/a .vlfK-AMFIFr LIBRARY^r ^OJITVJJO^ ^fOJITVJ-JO^ .,OF-fAIIFnPi, ttFfAIIFnDi. uirufu> ^viiuumw m\n^ y o\\im\n$> IVjrU'VllllJy^ JO^ — n g ^lOSANGElfr- ^OFCAIIFO/?^ .^OFCALIFO/?^ ^/maim3Wv >&Aavaan# ^amih^ fie • ^UIBRARY^r %ow>i^ ,\\MW\WS/a 3> .>clOSANCElfj^ ^iUDNVSOl^ ^a3AINn-3WV o "5 , r AWEUNIVERy/A ^LOSANCElfj^ %a3AINn-3\W £> ^ 1^ N vvlOSANCElfj> "^/hhainiukv* .jdOSANCElfx* ^l-LIBRARY^ ^UIBRARYfl? ^OFCAIIFO^ ^OFCAIIFO/?^ ce ■ SOCIAL QUESTIONS OF TO-DAY Edited by H. de B. Gibbins, M.A. THE RURAL EXODUS SOCIAL QUESTIONS OF TO-DAY. Edited by H. de B. GIBBINS, M.A. Crown 8vo, 2.c 6d. MESSRS. METHUEN announce the publication of a scries of volumes upon those topics of social, economic and industrial interest that are at the present moment foremost in the public mind. Each volume of the series is written by an author who is an acknowledged authority upon the subject with which he deals, and who treats his question in a thoroughly sympathetic but impartial number, with special reference to the historic aspect of the subject. The following form the earlier I 'olumes of the Series : — 1. TRADE UNIONISM-NEW AND OLD. G. HOWELL, M.P., Author of The Gonflicti oj ' 'apital and Labour. Ready. 2. PROBLEMS OF POVERTY : An Inquiry into the Industrial Con dition of the Poor. By I. A. Hobson, M.A. [Ready. 3. THE CO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENT TO-DAY. G. J. HOLYOAKE, Author of The History of Co-operation. [Ready. i. MUTUAL THRIFT. Rev. J. Frome Wilkinson, M.A., Author of The Friendly Society Movement. [Ready. 5. THE COMMERCE OF NATIONS. C. F. BASTABI.E, LL.I)., Professor of Political Economy in the University of Dublin. [Ready. 6. THE ALIEN INVASION. W. II. Wilkins, B.A., Secretary to the Association for Preventing the Immigration of Destitute Aliens. (With an Introduction by the Right Reverend the Bishop of Bedford.) [Ready 7. THE rural exodus: Problems of Village Life. P. Ander- son Graham. [Ready. 8. LAND NATIONALIZATION. HAROLD COX, B.A. [In the Pi The following are in preparation : — 9. MODERN LABOUR AND OLD ECONOMICS. II. DE B. GlBBINS, M.A. i Editor). Author of The Industrial History of England. 10. ENGLISH SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. HUBERT Bl AM), one of the Authors of Fabian Essays. 11. ENGLISH LAND AND ENGLISH MEN. Rev. C. W. Sn lis, M.A. Author of The Labourers and the Land. 12. CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. Rev. J. CARTER, M.A., of Pusev I louse, Oxfon i. 13. THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. J. R. DlGGLE, M.A., Chairman of the London School Board. 14. POVERTY AND PAUPERISM. Rev. L. R. PHELPS, M.A., Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. 15. CONTINENTAL LABOUR. \V. MAXWI l I . 16. WOMEN'S WORK. LADY DlLKE. 7 THE RURAL EXODUS THE PROBLEM OF THE VILLAGE AND THE TOWN BY P. ANDERSON GRAHAM AUTHOR OF "NATURE IN BOOKS " , - * 1 ' !■>> ' "• J "•' - - . ... 5 1 » • l . . . ' VI ■ » » 1 < ' ' ' • ' 1 ' • . "" " " * ... U J t o ■ ■ t • ' ittrtfturn & F III): IIKI.DS. 6 1 ing to consultation with the factor, the keeper, the butler, and other functionaries. He has appropriate amusements for every season — his angle in spring, his gun in autumn, his hunt in winter. If the house is an old one, it is almost certain to contain a great library, consisting of books col- lected during the course of generations, and, by its variety, proclaiming how the taste of one owner differed from that of another. Many an hour I have spent among such shelves, trying to reconstruct in my mind the lives and diversions of the dead men whose portraits were hanging on the dining- room walls. One has apparently lolled away the winter hours with novels, for nearly all the fiction carries his book- plate ; a second, by a similar token, has been a lover of antiquity ; and a third interests me still more. His delight has been in natural history, and it is impossible to take up a White or a Sowerby without tracing his finger. A cer- tain edition of Bewick's Birds that belonged to such a one is notebook, museum, and album in one. He has tinted all the wood engraver's pictures most delicately, and evidently from life, since by each illustration he has placed a characteristic feather of the bird, and the profuse an- notations give account of rare specimens shot on the demesne. Other evidence of a charming idleness is abundant. Within a grove of cypress standing in the middle of a wood, through wRose interlacing boughs you may (after gusty Octo- ber has thinned and darkened : 'the flying gold of the ruin'd woodland ") catch the white glitter of the mere, there is a row of dainty tombstones. They were nearly all erected a cen- tury ago, and by one whose name is not on many book- plates. He fought the tedium of the hours by amusing himself with dogs, and these are the graves of his pets. You 62 I Hi: RURAL EXODUS. may read their names — Tray, Blanche, and Sweetheart, and where, and why they died, and how this was beautiful, and that was kind, for it is all engraven on these stone memorials. Dogginess seems to have grown into a mania with the man, for he lias expended treasure upon busts and monuments of his favourites. Some of these are carved so well that my own dog growled at the dogs in marble the first time he saw them. One might endlessly expand the story of whims and eccentricities, hut I have said enough, I think, to justify the humdrum, prosaic and unsentimental reflection that the majority of these " ancestors " must have had great difficulty in killing time. They suffered from a superfluity of leisure ; and to this day the resident country gentleman finds life very stale and dull at times. Visitors come and go, it is true, hut many are formal relatives and friends, who make life duller rather than enliven it, and there are longueurs when nobody comes to stay, and when the casual caller is a godsend. The evenings, in particular, are dreary. It is depressing, indeed, when the ubiquitous maiden aunt and her cousin make a quartette at dinner with the host and the hostess. It is not as if the former could make off to his club or his theatre afterwards, or had the evening papers and town gossip, and a plentiful supply of new books to make shift with. The journals are a day late, Mudie sends the volumes one does not want to read, and were he inclined to talk with a friend he hesitates about taking the horses out on the dark and miry lanes. The most ardent sportsman will admit that country life, on the whole, is dull. He knows that the red-letter days are few and far between in his calendar. On the fingers of one hand he can count the good runs of a season, and were THE DULNESS OF THE FIELDS. 63 he to shoot continuously he would terrify from the estate all the game left alive. Men of genius alone seem to he able to endure the life with equanimity, and I suspect many of them found nature less entertaining than they are willing to admit. Richard Tefferies was oppressed with the dull stagnancy of Coate, Carlyle was glad to escape from the monotony of Craigenputtock, and, if Wordsworth enjoyed from his intercourse with nature as much rapture as he would have us believe, it is surprising that his transcription of it should so frequently be dull and insipid. But if this be so in the hall, the case is very much worse in the cottage. To realise it one has only to glance at an English agricultural landscape in mid-November. Ere then autumn gales and drenching showers have shorn away the glories of summer. The honeysuckle jessamine and rose that made the meanest dwelling look fit to be a lady's bower are blown and draggled. A few half- withered flowers and vegetables represent all the beauties of the garden. Tree and hedge, field and copse grow doubly black under a sky that is seldom other than sullen. All the alluring foot- paths leading from mead to mead, by stiles at which there was such pleasant dalliance in the August afternoons, are masses of sludge and mire that make even the heavy-booted rustic "hold his breath for a while" ere he attempts to wade them. As you gaze and philosophise, the chances are greatly in favour of a cold, pitiless, misty shower coming over the hill and making the cup of your discomfort over- flow. There are very few Englishmen, whether living in towns or not. who are unfamiliar with the summer aspects of English rural scenery. They have sat on some ferny eminence, and noted from the isolated smoke wreaths how 64 THE RURAL EXODUS. straggled and distant from each other are the cottages. Many a thatched or red-tiled dwelling stands absolutely alone, and the peasant has to trudge a mile or two before he sees a neighbour. From May onward to September or so, he does not mind this much. Work is constant and hard. If he has an hour's leisure there is always something to do in the garden or in the allotment. More people are moving about, and nowadays the cottage must be very remote in- deed that does not occasionally come under the notice of the tourist. But what a change when the short winter day comes, and the toil-worn cottar is driven home by darkness in what is afternoon rather than evening! A great number of hours intervene between then and bedtime : how is he to employ them ? Philanthropic persons say that now is the chance for him to improve his mind and cultivate his in- telligence. In point of fact, his inclination does not lie that way, and it is the very last thing he would think of doing. The book-loving rustic is not entirely a myth, but he is a rarity. A weekly newspaper is enough for the average man, and that does not serve him much more than Sunday. The volumes on his rude little bookshelf are, generally speaking, of a very dull and sleep-producing kind, Harvey's Medita- tions among the Tombs and Fox's Book of Martyrs being two of the most entertaining. Were his zeal for study ten times what it is, he would find obstacles to reading. Imagine him in the prime of life, and father of five or six children, and the whole family in one room. The rough, untrained boys and girls are alternately quarrelling and laughing, fighting, and chattering over their home- lessons. Younger ones are crawling about the floor, and if the baby is not ruthlessly thrust into his hands it is pro- bably yelling fit to break its heart; for the practical mistress THE DULNESS OF Till FIELDS. 65 of the household lias no time to coddle and spoil her off- spring. Now Hodge is not a man of delieate nerves. What would drive a brain-worker distracted is no great annoyance to him. Home — even such a home as I have pictured — is a pleasant place to a man who has been ploughing stubble or fel- ling timber, or driving horses under an inclement sky ; and the average English labourer is not prone to grumbling about such trifles. He will get baby on his knee, and laugh at its infantile tricks ; he tells the school children how much better a chance they are having than ever fell to his own lot, and exhorts them to diligence ; and the wife knows well that she may expect plenty of kindly, if rather coarse, banter and jesting from her " man ". But at the best, this en- vironment does not seem very favourable to the encourage- ment of study. One may almost conceive that the ideal paragon of a husband would in time find the repetition of this scene night after night somewhat dull and monotonous. Would it be surprising if once in a while a night with a few cronies in the taproom of the " Dragon " were welcomed as a relief that he would seek oftener but for lack of means ? To a man of high intelligence, existence where toil alter- nates with squalor would be quite unendurable, but the rustic has a formula for reconciling himself to it. " Well, George," I once asked a young gamekeeper, who not alto- gether willingly had been obliged to take a partner to his home, "how do you like being married? " " Houts, sir," he answered, " we just hae to put up with it ! " and to how many queries has a similar reply been made ! Our rustic is "used to" the turmoil of home, " used to" going to bed early in order to save the candle ends, "used to" hard work and poor fare, and a dull weary life. " It's different with townfolk, 66 THE RURAL EXODUS. but we're 'used to ' these things" is a very frequently tendered explanation. He is like the tame mouse or bird that, born within a cage, knows nothing of liberty, and, therefore, does not seek to escape ; or, rather, he was so, for latterly he has given unmistakable signs of being in the position of that same creature after it has once tasted of liberty and been recaptured. When the hind fostered no hope of escaping from his doleful lot, he had many inventions of his own for brighten- ing it. No sooner was the corn stacked and the potato pit dug, than the preparation commenced for a series of simple festivities that gave occasion to weeks of anticipatory and reminiscent talk. The kirn dolly — a tiny sheaf bound in ribbons, and originally, perhaps, emblematic of the god of harvest — was carried merrily home with dance and music, and in the ensuing time of plenty the kindly poor were thoughtful of those in want. Was an aged, respectable widow in need, and fearful how she would get through the winter safely: "Come," said the neighbours, "let us give her a merry night ". And this wife would bake a loaf and that a cake, and one bring a pound of tea and a second a lump of butter, till materials were gathered for a regular feast. Then the fiddler was cajoled into coming, and on the appointed moonlight night you might see the neigh- bours going to tea, each man carrying his mug, each girl with a cup and saucer. As every guest made the old lady a present, a night such as this was not only a pleasant one for the country folk but left something substantial in the poor widow's cupboard and pocket. When two young people wanted to get married, and, in Sir Walter's homely words, had no prospect but that of four bare legs in a bed together, it was usual to get up a quilting party to make patchwork cover- Till'. DULNESS OF THE FIELDS. 67 lets and other necessaries for them. These gatherings were invariably followed by a dance in the barn, and one may fancy the scene — the fiddler on an upturned tub, with a mug of beer beside him, the rafters rendered only half visible by the tallow candles fixed on the walls, the laughter and cries of the jigging couples. Several old and intelligent peasant women have told me that of all the ongoings of their youth none had left memories so bright and innocent as these. But it was a characteristic of the old-fashioned peasant that he shared in the joys and sorrows of his neighbours more than his successors do. We have seen how he en- couraged courtship. At the wedding he " roped " the bride and bridegroom for drink-money ; and, when the first baby came, shamed was the mother who had not ready her cheese and her easing cake, shamed the acquaintance who did not welcome the new-comer with a frock, and come to taste the cheer provided for the occasion. And even when a death occurred the friends gathered and helped to expel the first bitter grief of the survivors by encouraging them to drink. It will not be gainsaid by any one who knows the English rustic that he is ceasing to take this lively interest in his neighbours. The lads and lasses court and marry, have children, die, and are forgotten without comment or interference. And this is due to two causes. Firstly, pay- ment tf\ cash has been largely substituted for payment in kind, and people are grown more independent of one another. Secondly, as population has become more migra- tory, families have ceased to be united by the same bonds of close friendship that used to hold them together. It is evident, however, that be the cause what it may, the ob- solescence of such usages cannot fail to add very consider- ably to the dulness of the fields. 68 THE RURAL KXODUS. Still more important is the rapid decay of rural sport and pastime. It is, no doubt, well that many of them have gone. Old-fashioned rustics were unquestionably brutal in their amusements. It was the height of enjoyment for them to see a terrier trying to draw a badger from under a bundle of faggots, or a bull-dog worrying an otter. They were fond of cocking, and the rat-pit, and the cockshy. Bewick epitomises the feeling of an entire class when he represents a fat village blacksmith laughing consumedly at a dog flying along the thoroughfare with a tin kettle tied to its tail. Is it not plain, however, that unless substitutes have been found for them, the discontinuance of these cruel diversions must also add greatly to the rural dulness ? And far from anything having been found to replace them, their abolition has been accompanied by the curtailment of other and more legitimate rural amusements. Last century, for example, it was much more common than it is now for the villager to possess a gun. One may infer as much from the number of flint-lock fowling pieces that still are to be found in old cottages whose present owners never would dream of burning powder. Those who are anxious for further proof may be referred to a rather curious illustration. Many of my readers will remember that two or three years ago, when the rooks were extremely destructive in Northumber- land, a " war " was declared against them. In other words, a price was put upon their heads, and the peasantry were offered a chance of simultaneously obtaining the kind of " sport " they like, and earning a little pocket-money. The campaign was very successful, but not nearly so much so as an exactly similar one carried on in Haddington in the latter part of last century. And the explanation would seem to be that there used to be far more peasants who THE DULNESS OK Till. FIELDS. 69 could shoot than there are now. [ndeed, a cottager nowa- days must either have an eye to poaching, or be a horn sportsman, hefore he takes out a gun-licence. It is the same with dogs, which used to provide no small share of the village amusement. The rigour with which the game- laws are enforced, and the vigilance of the Inland Revenue men, render it impossible for Hodge to divert himself with a dog. We must add to these facts the other, that the rustic holiday has almost become a thing of the past. Some institutions, like the annual dance round the Maypole, have passed away altogether : of others only the ruins are left. In Lincolnshire the peasants on Plough Monday still carry round a coulter decorated with ribbons, and beg money for a supper ; children in some portions of the Midlands, in the North, and in Cornwall, go a-" mumming" somewhat in the way their grandfathers did ; there are corners of Lancashire in which country folk still perform a mutilated Easter Play as a prelude to asking the Pace or Paschal eggs that once upon a time were sought all over ; in Gloucestershire, I am told, there are men living who in boyhood went a-mothering, and one could multiply to an indefinite extent the instances where still there is a survival of the vigorous pastimes that earned for England the name of Merty. But every one is dying out, and that not slowly but swiftly ; its going in each instance taking away one more attraction from the fields. Even the local " feasts " and " wakes " and fairs are gradually dying out. And it cannot be said that there are any new amusements coming in their place. Cricket, football, and other games are played less rather than more in the village. It is, therefore, not without reason that complaint is 70 THE RURAL EXODUS. made of the gross and palpable dulness of lower class English country life. No other labour is so utterly unre- lieved by enjoyment of any kind. And what makes it the more felt is, that at the same time with the removal of these ancient amusements the intelligence of the labourers has been quickened, so that they have a greater zest than their forefathers had for life and excitement, for stir and movement and bustle. The labourer is gradually becoming more alive, his surroundings are not only duller, but in his eyes they seem very much duller than they are. And it is obvious that unless we can in some way enhance the attractions of village life, it is idle to hope that our educated villagers will be content to remain there. CHAPTER VIII. THE EDUCATION OF HODGE. It hardly needs to be pointed out at this time of day that schooling is only a very small part of education. What a man has learned to love or to hate, his interests and his aversions, his ambition and even his intelligence, result from influences of which the schoolmaster is only one. Among the others must be reckoned his home and early companions, the conversation to which he listens, his first attempts at work, the amusements not only of himself but of his elders, and last, but not least, his surroundings in solitary and idle moments. These all combine to form the bundle of "prejudices held in check by reason" that ulti- mately constitute his mind. If this be granted it follows as an inevitable consequence that the rustic of to-day must in every important aspect THE EDUCATION OF HODGE. 7 I differ most essentially from those who went before him. The little urchin, who is to be seen any morning of the nineteenth as he was in the sixteenth century, " with his satchel and shining, morning face, creeping like snail un- willingly to school," lives a life widely different from that led seventy years ago by his grandsire, who now sits at the ingle-nook and gossips discursively of the days that are long gone by. There is nothing he likes better than to tell the quiet and sympathetic listener about those happy, old times, for to the eyes of the old, childhood is always happy. Without bitterness or regret the patriarch will talk by the hour of youth that for him has all youth's glory, harsh and cruel though the particulars may appear to us. He has extremely scant memories of school, for he was only there in the winter months of a year or two, and learned absolutely nothing from the cripple who was schoolmaster, but he has not forgotten how they " barred " the master out on the shortest day and got well thrashed for it, or that if there were a meet of the hounds or a coursing match in the neigh- bourhood, nay, if a caravan or circus, journeying from one town to another, happened to pass the road-end, the male scholars played truant in a body. He might possibly have learned the alphabet and half of the multiplication table in winter, but he forgot it in spring, for no sooner did the sower .go forth to sow than the little mite of six, armed with a wooden clapper, was sent out to the wheat-fields to scare the birds. And it was not such easy work as one may fancy, for the rooks and wood-pigeons seemed to know they had no very formidable enemy in the dumpy figure that raised its shrill treble and tried to thunder at them with bits of wood. They merely flew from the side next the pasture to that bordering on the wood or back again, content if they 72 THE RURAL EXODUS. were beyond range of the stones he was already learning to throw with vigorous and accurate aim. But if his task were neglected, the farmer with a hazel sapling administered a thrashing compared to which the worst beating given by the schoolmaster was a light one. As he grew older he was gradually entered to more important work, such as picking stones and weeds, and was occasionally employed by the squire as well as the farmer. Sometimes he was sent to rake the autumn leaves lying thick on the gravel walks and grass about the hall ; now and then the keeper when short of beaters would send for him to go out with a shooting party. His father and mother, having many mouths to feed and little to do it with, saw that he missed no opportunity of earning a few coppers. He was very poorly fed all the time, but the healthy life, the fresh air and exercise caused him to thrive on black bread and home-made cheese as miraculously as the exiled prophets did on pulse. He still remembers how he used on Monday morning to begin to reckon how many days must elapse before Sunday came round again, bringing the one hot dinner of the week. While he ought yet to have been at school, he had already begun in the loose way common among the last generation of agricultural labourers "to cock his eye" at the girls, and ere he reached his majority was a husband and father, prepared to send his children along the same path he had gone himself. It was on the whole a stupefying and demoralising course of training, but it had one redeeming feature. The boy was not held so terribly close to his task but that he found time to ramble about the fields, to go birds'-nesting and trout-guddling, and as his ambition such as it was belonged exclusively to the farm, he learned to love the soil with a I UK EDUCATION OF HOM.l. 73 passion his grandson never can know. It was no more than the unreflecting affection of the hound for his kennel, of the horse for his stable, some one may say, but it is a great deal if it were no less than that. The feeling with which he regarded his lot can scarcely be described as content- ment ; rather it was a dull and forced acquiescence, grown into a habit so confirmed that rebellion was not thought of. Seldom did the simple old hearts, the men who tugged their forelocks, the women who deeply curtsied when they met the vicar or the squire, imagine that " the like of we " were in any way equal with the great folks who had their carriages. How different is the rustic youth of to-day ! The legis- lature has determined that on no account shall he grow up in the same way as preceding generations did. Firstly, it has put an effectual stop to that very early beginning of work which used to prevail. There is no longer any bird-scaring or weeding at six or seven. Until he has attained a certain standard of knowledge, the ploughman's boy is under legal compulsion to attend school. Also, school has assumed a very different meaning to what it did. Instead of being merely a rough kind of shelter or nursery, kept by some cripple, or person otherwise incapacitated for general work, it is an organised seminary presided over by a carefully trained-and qualified teacher, who works with the knowledge that what he does must come periodically under the keen and vigilant scrutiny of an expert in testing educational pro- gress. The system has very grave defects, but at its worst it produces a very different kind of youth from the other; viz., a schoolboy who up to the age of eleven or twelve has been allowed to grow not only in body but in mind ; who can read almost any kind of book, while his grandfather can 74 THE RURAL EXODUS. scarcely spell through a local paragraph in the papers ; who can write a passable letter instead of having to make his mark, and is able to cipher on paper in place of counting by- methods common only among half-civilised tribes. Yet the system has very serious blemishes. The con- tinual outcry of teachers for increased compulsion seems to show a dislike to it on the part both of parents and scholars — a dislike the importance of which can only be estimated by remembering that interest is of the very essence of effective education, and no really valuable work can be done without it. A boy who finds school life invariably dull and mechanical might just as well be out in the fields. Per- haps this defect may be accounted for by the fact that, taken as a class, country teachers are greatly inferior to those in towns. You cannot blame the best for going where the largest schools and the best salaries are. School- masters are very well aware of the deficiencies of rural teachers, and are the first to admit them. Much evidence on the point could be adduced, but a single reference may do instead of many. It is from a pamphlet on Technical Education in the Counties, by Messrs. G. J. Michell and E. H. Smith. They advance the following six reasons to account for their statement that " the rural schools are, as a rule, the class of elementary schools in which the worst work is done " :— ■ " i. The teachers, as a rule, are very badly paid, and, therefore, are not the best to be obtained. " 2. The schools are almost invariably understaffed. "3. The apparatus and plant are generally very defective. "4. Inclement weather plays havoc with the attendance. '' 5. Children are kept away too much for field work. 6. The children leave at far too early an age, a very " THE EDUCATION OF HODGE. 75 small proportion of those on the register being in the standards above the fourth." Now, it always has been a saying of the better type of rustic, that education is the poor man's fortune, and the lack of interest complained of by schoolmasters arises from a consciousness that these schools, in which, as our autho- rities say, "the worst work is done," offer hardly any useful education. The most diligent search fails to reveal in the curriculum anything calculated in the slightest degree to ex- cite the rustic boy's interest in the work around him. It is not entirely without reason that many Conservatives say in print, and many more in private conversation, that education is at the root of the whole evil ; it is doubtful, however, if they will agree with me in thinking that the remedy lies in making it more thorough, suitable, and intelligent. Let us see if we can bring their somewhat vague criticism into clear and tangible form. Firstly, it is contended that a smattering of learning serves no other purpose than that of making the labourers dissatis- fied. Farm-work is, beyond all question, drudgery. It is toil that the artisan and mechanic look down upon. Con- sequently, when a man has sufficient schooling to be able to read in the papers that he is contemptuously called Hodge and bumpkin and clodpole by his fellow-men, and that th,e "bucolic mind" is a butt for scornful though good- humoured banter, he grows ashamed of his calling. Secondly, the schooling is just sufficient to make the lad of more than average brain power restless, ambitious, and dissatisfied. He comes to hate country life because it affords no scope for his newly-discovered talents. Feeling that he ought to be in the thick of the battle, fighting his way upward, he makes no attempt to cloak a discontent that •j6 THE RURAL EXODUS. is the most infectious of diseases. What the clever man says with a show of truth is echoed by companions who are in reality fit for nothing else than the plough-tail and the suit of hodden grey. There is a percentage of rural children whose education involves what is neither more nor less than sheer waste of money. What they learn in school is speedily forgotten in the fields. Thirdly, no pains are taken to see that the schoolmaster has any special qualification for teaching country children. He maybe, and often is, a townsman, whose acquaintance with lane and field dates from his appointment. Moreover, for the reasons already given, the chances are in favour of his being a stupid townsman, who would have taught in a town school if he had been clever enough to get the offer of a place in one. If the object of our educational reformers had been to wean the affections of country children from their natural employment, they could scarcely have hit upon a more effective plan. The estrangement is deepened by the new kind of holiday, which has caught the labourers' fancy. By all classes of observers it has been noticed that the one country holiday which has taken up and supplanted all others is the cheap trip to town. The village publican and the shopkeepers grumble continuously at it. For months together the labourer seems to be absolutely without coin. He never pays a bill that can be avoided. If he enter the public-house it is to dawdle over one twopenny mug of beer till the landlord has lost patience. But when the railway company issues its posters announcing a cheap excursion for one, two, or three days to town, Hodge immediately becomes alert. This is the pleasure in which he thinks he can get value for his money. It would be interesting to THE EDUCATION OF HODGE. 77 know the average eost of one of these expeditions. The fare one can see is very low ; and, as every rustic has friends in the city, the other necessary expenses are not high. A young gamekeeper, whose relatives are all ploughmen, tells me that not many would leave home with less than three or four pounds in their pockets, and it is rare that anything is brought back. But the importance of the cheap trip lies in its educa- tional more than in its economical aspect. From it the rustic learns much that the schoolmaster could not teach him. Landlords of little country hotels where I stayed during the process of these inquiries often volunteered in- formation on the point. Usually, the kitchen in such places is a kind of taproom as well, and, attracted as much as anything by its bright fire, villagers, both young and old, come hither and sit on the cold winter nights, thus escap- ing the dulness of their own homes. The scene is by no means a Bacchanalian one — far from it. Imagine a number of stolid-looking labourers in caps and corduroy, sitting on wooden chairs, with a tankard of very thin beer between two, and, to complete the picture, fancy a flitch of bacon suspended from the ceiling, and a rough dog or two stretched on the floor. From the conversation that goes on a very fair idea may be obtained of the thoughts occupying the mind of Hodge, and of the extent to which the cheap trip has educated him. Long ago these men would have talked of country themes. The news they would have discussed would have been the bastardy and poaching cases at the Petty Sessions, the changes in hall and grange, the outlook for turnips and hay, the qualities of horses, and other bucolic themes. It is not that sort of conversation which goes on to-day. The ab- 78 THE RURAL EXODUS. sorbing topics are reminiscences of the latest trip to town. Hodge has been to the cheap theatres and music halls, and is a keen critic of actresses and music-hall " artistes," whose merits and demerits he discusses most keenly. With his migrated kinsmen he has made practical acquaintance with beer and skittles in the taverns of Poplar and Shoreditch. He has been a bit of a rake, and recounts where in his roamings he found the most satisfactory bars, where he had the best go of gin for his twopence ; nay, he will even, with a leer, describe the blandishments of the strange woman "that lieth in wait at every corner''. I do not think he is one that " goeth after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks ". His attitude is rather that of curiosity aroused in regard to a new aspect of life. If he fall, it is in his cups, and tales are common of the simpletons who have been fleeced utterly, and sent home penniless, by city women who are quick to discern an easy prey in the raw and witless village youths. What strikes him most is the contrast between to.vn and country. He looks out of his cottage window when dark- ness is falling upon lane and tree and meadow, and the candles that are being lit tell the whereabouts of his neigh- bours. How miry and dismal and forbidding it is all ! Were he to venture out he might travel the lane for miles and see nobody. Compare to it the brilliant crowded streets — the light gushing from lamp and shop-window — of which the stir and bustle and excitement form a memory that is like some entrancing vision from dreamland. The public-house where he sits, bright as it may be compared to his own home, is insignificant in comparison with the gorgeous city gin-palaces. And the silence and loneliness, of the village — how sober and melancholy they feel to one who knows the THE EDUCATION OF HODGE. 79 bustle and movement, the manifold diversions and amuse- ments of town life. To understand all this clearly, we must regard it from the peasant's point of view. Refined and cultivated men are well aware that he is under a gross delusion. The majority of them after an experience — not of the rough, garish, flaunting pleasures described, but of the more exquisite delights of social life — come to the conclusion that the sum of pleasure is greater in a quiet, Unperturbed hamlet, with all its stagnant tranquillity and work-a-day tasks, than in the feverish, restless life which has for company " sorrow barri- cadoed evermore within the walls of cities ". But Hodge is no philosopher. The cheap trip has revealed to him a con- trast between living and a state of torpor, and he prefers the former. The cheap trip has opened his eyes. Now the great fault of his school education is that it does nothing, at least nothing of importance, to counteract this tendency. The ground for hope lies in this, that those responsible have recently begun to show a lively conscious- ness of the defect; and in the attempts to promote a more general agricultural teaching, and in the opportunities afforded the County Councils, we may discern evidence of a very sincere desire to rectify it. But the subject demands a treatment far more radical than any that as yet has been more than dreamt of. In time the operation of many recently made laws must be to wipe out the kind of peasant who works simply for wages as a town artisan does. Every ploughman is encou- raged to hire an allotment to work himself into a small holding, and ultimately by the aid of the State to acquire a property of his own. Thus he is getting to have far more than a mere servant's interest in the cultivation of the soil, 8o THE RURAL EXODUS. and it is obvious that the prime object of education should be to strengthen that interest and render it more intelligent. If this be so it surely follows that the teaching of agriculture instead of following in the wake of other subjects as a kind of optional addendum to them should be elevated into the place of first importance. We cannot do that by means of the refuse of college-trained schoolmasters, who by their own account now staff the rural schools. For a country school- master it will be necessary that the prime qualifications should be a knowledge and love of country pursuits. It is a reform more important than it looks, but the accomplish- ment of which would not involve much, if any, additional expense. Among the present teachers there must be a per- centage fitted by nature and temperament for this kind of work, and the chief business would consist of selecting and fitting them for it. But there is a change of almost equal importance most urgently needed. Among country children there will always be some whose taste and talents and inclination point to town as the most suitable place for them. No other dis content is so bitter as that of foiled ambition, and while the present barriers remain they always will be centres from which radiates dissatisfaction with the life of the fields. If instead of granting free education, a reform for which there is very little thankfulness and for which there never was an outcry, Lord Salisbury's Government had applied the funds to creating an educational ladder by which it would have been possible for a hamlet child to mount, a real and serious grievance would have been remedied. I cannot but think that the aim of a national system of education should be twofold. Firstly, it fits the citizen for the place he ought to fill ; but, secondly, it should be a mechanism helping the individual into the place he is most fitted for. VILLAGE POLITICS. 8l CHAPTER IX. VILLAGE POLITICS. During recent years the political education of Hodge has rapidly advanced, but it would be a mistake to assume that it began with the extension of the household franchise to the counties. The English village always was a miniature dup- licate of the English political world, with this difference, that creed seemed to have there a closer association with calling than it has in town. Exceptions there are and must be, but in a general way to know a villagers occupation is to know how he will vote. The vicar and the squire are for Church and State, and grumble only that the Tories are not more rigorously Conservative. The Nonconformist preacher is a Radical Disestablisher, and inclines to complain with Mr. John Morley that the pace of reform is "killingly slow". Most of the independent tradesmen and mechanics are decidedly Radical in their opinions, though the well-to-do butcher, who serves the "quality" and has a bit of land of his own, leans to the aristocratic view of things, but not quite so much so as his crony the publican, who knows that when English beer goes out of fashion through Liberal instrumentality, the glory of this ancient realm will be in decay. 'Why it should be so I never quite understood, but the sturdy, taciturn and strong blacksmith seems generally to be as Tory as the very gamekeeper. These all remind you of Shakespeare's middle-aged justice, " with eyes severe and beard of formal cut, full of wise saws and modern instances". It is a village expression of the slightly conventional and formal style associated with thorough-bred Conservatism You find it in the teacher's air of superiority and dogmatism 6 82 THE RURAL EXODUS. for the system of training now in vogue, though it has changed him in many respects, has not obliterated the characteristics noted by Oliver Goldsmith. No longer can his prowess be celebrated by singing that " Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage, and e'en the story ran that he could gauge," but substitute his Government certi- ficate for the one, and certain " sciences " of South Ken- sington for the other, and mutatis mutandis he is still the old man, the owner of a portentous vocabulary, who in an argument is like the typical Briton and never knows when he is vanquished. In the minds of the butcher, the publican, and the smith a sense of superiority has been developed by quite other causes. They are to some extent men of sub- stance, living well and drinking well, and look down with a certain air of patronage on their poor, struggling neighbours. " You have the impudence to ask me for a pint of beer on credit ! " said a publican one day in my hearing to a poor, ill-dressed, shifty-looking wretch. " You damned, miser- able, oily-tongued, blood-sucking sponge ! Draw him a jug of bitter, Mary. By the eternal fire, he'll need it after I've had a jaw at him " ; and certainly, except out of a certain book, and that the one containing the curse of Ernulphus, never did I listen to such an objurgation as he then addressed to the reptile who sat still and unconcernedly sipped his beer. But it was easy to see that vituperation of the individual was edged by contempt of a class. The most revolutionary spark in the village is the cobbler who sits on his stool all day meditating irefully on the wrongs of the working classes. His face flushes as he tugs at the lingles, for it is hard work pulling the stout waxed ends through the heavy soles of a field labourer's boots, and he often attributes to the sufferings of humanity irritation VILLAGE POLITICS. 83 really due to the irksomencss of his task, but indignation frames for him many a deadly phrase to be fired off at the more plethoric blacksmith, when the two foregather at night for the " drop o' rum " which is their sleeping cup. He detests the landlord, and would forswear the " Dragon" were he not afflicted with a craving for drink, that ever and anon carries him into the accursed presence. With both the parsons he is at feud, for lying beside his awls, his broad knives, his files, and his paste-pot, is a copy of The Rights of Man, which is his Bible. He is the Bradlaugh of his native place, and neighbours whisper that he fears neither God, man, nor devil. It is one of his boasting beliefs that such things as brownies, ghosts, and evil spirits have no existence except in imaginations grossly superstitious, and he pro- claims his readiness to remain till twelve among the mouldering tombstones of the old churchyard, or to visit at the same hour any ruined chapel, haunted wood, or other resort of " spooks " in the vicinity. But it has been noticed that he is chary of these vauntings when his enemy the keeper is at hand, and that functionary chuckles cynically when he hears of them. On the summit of a green and grassy hill grows a large-limbed oak on which " the minister's maiden," a girl of nineteen who got into trouble, hanged herself to escape her shame, and of course her ghost comes gibbering and moaning there whenever the wind rises. Now, one night the daring free-thinker ventured there in a fresh breeze and fitful moonlight. The keeper is a prudent man who never by more than a wink indicates what took place, but it is known that he was not far off, and had parti- cular reasons for not wishing to be intruded upon ; while it is equally certain that the cobbler fled home with a white, scared face, rushed into his house and carefully barred the 84 THE RURAL EXODUS. door. Since then he has not had the same weight and influence in the public-house discussions. It is considered that he is no better than a whimsical, viewy, speculative theorist. What may be described as the steady, conventional, fair- and-square Liberalism of Government or Opposition is re- presented by the carpenters and other regular artisans. They are in touch with town operatives and greatly in favour of the eight-hours' movement. Sympathy with migrated rela- tives also induces a keen interest in strikes and other aggressive movements of labour in its continual warfare with capital. It is usual too for the village shopkeepers to be Liberal in politics. The uncertain element is made up for the most part of those directly engaged in the work of tillage. To get at the real political thoughts and aspirations of the agricultural labourer is extremely difficult. In the first place, he is naturally secretive, and takes full advantage of the Ballot Act. " And how are you going to vote ? " asked a candi- date's wife in the Midlands of one of her husband's labourers. " My lady," was the unexpected reply, " I've not told my own missis that." This was very characteristic of the class. Before Richard Jefferies wrote Hodge and his Masters he visited about a dozen agricultural counties, and was in the habit, for the sake of learning exactly what the men were thinking about, of stopping at the little public- houses where they gathered. On these occasions, after a long afternoon walk, and the tea, bacon and eggs that form almost the only repast procurable at such places, he would make his way in among the ploughmen. As he had perfect command of the broad Wiltshire dialect, and a close acquaintance with the details of country life, it was easy VILLAGE POLITICS. 85 for him, with a change of dress, to be taken for some kind of superior labourer himself, and so hear and gather the intimate opinions of these men. What seems to have im- pressed his mind was the gusto with which they would dwell on the coming day when it would fall to their lot to plough up this and the other gentleman's "bloody park". But that was in a time of great excitement, when a variety of circumstances combined to inflame their minds. The incident shows how futile it is to hope to obtain any just idea of the rustic's thoughts by means of formal interroga- tion. Often the awkward clown who scratches his head, and, before a questioner, seems the picture of stupidity, is glib enough among his own cronies. It must be remembered, too, that at present his ideas are changing and fluctuating. He has not yet had time to settle down to any permanent belief. Evidence of that is afforded by his meetings, many of which I have attended. The favourite season for them is autumn, just when the nights are beginning to lengthen considerably. Little hand- bills are posted up here and there, announcing that some one — it may be Mr. Joseph Arch, or it may be somebody else — is going to lecture at some village inn, the subject usually being "The Labourers' Union," or some cognate theme, and the time is dusk. Any one who cares to go a little earlier will experience no great difficulty in having a talk witli the orator, who usually drives up in a hired cart an hour or so before the meeting commences, and holds a kind of levee in the inn parlour. At the appointed hour, a long cart is drawn up in front of the hostelry, and it is used as a platform much in the same way as a similar vehicle is used in Hyde Park on Sundays when there happens to be a demonstration. Hardly any light is employed, because the 86 THE RURAL EXODUS. great object of those who are present is to escape notice. No- body knows who is coming. Hodge reads the bill, says it is too far to walk, and does not think he will attend. All the same, he does not forget to dawdle off through the fields, when the evening comes, in a way to let you under- stand that he is going nowhere in particular. But he keeps up his slouching gait till it eventually brings him to the village, where, in the fading light, he forms one of a dusky group of listeners standing round the cart. In judging of his demeanour there, it must be taken into account that the slow and almost torpid agricultural mind is peculiarly sensitive to oratorical appeals. Hodge shares with children and primitive peoples a faculty for being easily moved and easily pleased. It has a kinship with the characteristic that allows him to be carried off his feet equally by a wave of revivalism, a wave of abstinence, or a wave of politics. He delightedly wore the badge of Good Templarism or a snippet of blue ribbon, and he willingly accepts a decoration from the Primrose League. These are in succession his toys and playthings. And the lecturer, un- doubtedly, knows his men. His qualifications are a loud, sonorous voice, an unlimited command of rough, striking simile, and great power of vituperation. That his aspirates and grammar and pronunciation are the products of an arbitrary selection of his own is of no consequence. A more cultivated speaker would talk above the comprehen- sion of his hearers, and this one is just sufficiently in ad- vance of them to lead and yet make them look up to him. He has no acquaintance with the Demosthenic axiom, but he enforces his periods with abundant gesture, which, like that of almost all self-made orators, is nearly always natural and appropriate. VILLAGE POLITICS. 87 The speech is a hotch-potch of current ideas upon land. I have listened to many such addresses with surprise that they should differ so slightly. Beside me are notes of one I heard delivered one September evening, in 1887, in the valley of the Severn — not far from Tewkesbury, in point of fact — and another that I chanced to hear in October, 1891, in a corner of Norfolkshire. It may be added that both are by the same man. They begin by an almost identical passage referring to the low wages paid for agricul- tural labour, and insinuating that the sons of toil are half- starved in order that the farmer may ride in his gig and the landlord in his carriage : a bit of rhetoric that immediately puts the speaker on good terms with his audience. But the lapse of time, and the changes it has brought, are abundantly evident in what follows. In his early speech the orator was stirring up his hearers to demand allotments ; in the latter he preached to willing ears that the rent asked for them was shamelessly exorbitant. His mind was no longer full of the three-acres-and-a-cow idea suggested by Mr. Jesse Collings, but he warmly advocated the establishment of Parish Councils, and hinted in no vague terms that these would acquire land and let it to the labourers on strictly reasonable terms. Formerly, his mind seemed full of the scheme of Land Nationalisation usually associated with the name of Mr. Henry George, but apparently he had relin- quished that in favour of a plan for municipalising it. On both occasions he upbraided his hearers with their lethargy, and urged upon them that the only way to secure what he called their rights was by joining and strengthening the union. He repeated, with emphasis, that their ends were to be accomplished only by means of strikes, and seemed to regard Parliamentary action with contempt. In 18S7 88 THE RURAL EXODUS. there were no County Councils, and in 1891 they were — and not on one occasion only —referred to in terms of withering scorn. So many gentry had been elected, that they could in no wise be regarded as truly democratic institutions. During the course of a winter, a very great number of lectures, similar to these in tone and substance, are de- livered in those rural districts where the men receive the worst wages ; and, as they are reinforced by political vans and other agencies, it is no wonder that the trend of political opinion in the counties is at present towards Radicalism. The only exceptions are districts that have escaped the effects of agricultural depression, or which are represented by a member of some peculiarly popular family. After many months of talk with, and observation of, agricul- tural labourers, I felt more surprised at the number of county seats retained by Conservatives than at the quantity they have lost. The chief reason for this seems to be that the Liberals have succeeded in driving a wedge into the agricultural in- terests. Labour and capital are at war here as elsewhere. Far more landlords and farmers than is generally supposed are convinced that the state of the rural districts is due almost exclusively to the English policy of Free Trade, and that the way to salvation lies through the reimposition of a Protective Duty on corn. But the labourer does not see that at all ; he is rather inclined to construe it as praise of the dear loaf. He has not suffered from foreign competi- tion in the direct and the palpable way of which his employers complain. Not only have his wages either re- mained at the same level, or have been increased, but the purchasing power of them has been extended. Necessaries VILLAGE POLITICS. 89 and luxuries have alike been cheapened. Thus he is deaf to the charming of those who would persuade him to be a Fair Trader. It may possibly be all true and logical that a five-shilling duty would be paid by the foreign exporter, that the revenue thus realised would lighten taxation, and all the rest of it ; but the hard fact remains, that if the duty did not result in an advance of prices it would be of no service to the British farmer, and if it did, the consumer would have to pay. Hodge looks with greater favour on the plans of those who promise to advance his material comfort by measures that seem at once speedy, direct, and, as far as he is concerned, costless. But, on the other hand, Conservative statesmanship is making a strong endeavour to re-knit the temporarily separated interests connected with land. Make every peasant a tenant, and actually, or potentially, an owner of the soil, and he will very soon come to regard all these matters from an entirely different point of view. He is, naturally, the reverse of a revolutionist. Accustomed to work of which the reward is long delayed, patient and long- suffering by temperament, he is also Conservative in his instincts. Not all the fiery oratory breathed into his ears can make a real fanatic of him. Much is rejected by his slow apprehension, much more by his suspicious and in- credulous spirit. There is no lecturer paid by the Union, no political speaker, no emissary from the London Docks, who will not admit that to rouse the enthusiasm of the agricultural labourer, or to hammer a new idea into his head, is a task to baffle rhetoricians under whose influence a town audience is as clay in the hands of the potter. After descanting on his love of good speaking, this may seem a self-contradiction, but the paradox is only apparent. Taken 90 THE RURAL EXODUS. on one side, he is a child ; on another, the impersonification of caution and astuteness — not of quick understanding, but less a dullard than he looks. It is but natural to ask on what kind of literature the intellect of the villager is nourished, and to satisfy my own curiosity on the subject, I very frequently walked into the newsyendor's shop and asked him what papers he sold most of. Very little is to be gleaned by studying the village reading rooms, which have multiplied vastly of recent years. They never seemed to be thronged with visitors, and the papers hardly represent the taste of the subscribers. One or two of the London dailies and the local papers are purchased, the squire sends down the Field, and the parson in many cases presents the Graphic or the Illustrated Lo?idon News, but these are usually so clean and innocent of thumb marks they seem to receive only a casual glance. The nevvsvendor is generally "the merchant" of the place. His dingy shop has on one side hunks of cheese and tubs of butter side by side with paraffin oil and coils of brown twist ; on the other there are coarse tweeds, children s' caps, femi- nine necessaries, and much tape and small ware. He is quite communicative about the sale of the various papers disposed of and the quantity of the "returns". Of the half-dozen or so of journals, local or "county" in character, one is usually first, the rest nowhere. Suppose the Adver- tiser has the run, then the Chronicle, Journal, Herald, Examiner, Mercury, and Express have but four or five subscribers in his district. But in nine cases out of ten I found that a London paper called the Weekly Budget was far and away the most popular with country folk. Judging from a casual number or two, it seems concocted largely of hotly-spiced divorce cases, sensational stories by VILLAGE POLITICS. 9 I authors one has not heard of, and answers to correspondents. Politics do not seem to occupy a very prominent position in it. Without desiring in any way to praise or censure the paper, it may be said that the aim of those who direct it does not seem to be the " elevation of the masses ". There is a Sheffield publication somewhat similar in character that in some districts is its rival, and in Northumberland the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle, a journal of distinctly higher tone, is the most widely read. Such, briefly and inadequately sketched, are a few of the more important literary and political forces that combine to form the intellectual taste and character of the agricultural labourer. It must be remembered that he is frequently a listener to, and not seldom a participator in, those pot- house discussions of which the character has been indicated. He hearkens respectfully to the knights and dames of the Primrose League, and makes a plaything of the badges they give him. He sidles off to the agitator's meeting, and comes back with the conviction that he is a wronged and down-trodden martyr, yet full of doubts in regard to the advice he has listened to. At home he crams his mind with the gossip of the divorce court and with fiction whose chief interest centres there. We must not judge him too harshly on account of these things. If you would rescue any one from the mire you must not be afraid of making your own shoes muddy. Agencies that would be demoralising if brought to act on a high type of intelligence may yet have a beneficial effect on a very low one. It is better for Hodge to read silly stories than not to read at all, better to argue in public- houses than go off into torpor, better to be the tool of charlatans than to allow all his interests to be atrophied ; 9 2 THE RURAL EXODUS. for when his mind is quickened he will speedily shake off these evil influences. CHAPTER X. OUR COTTAGE HOMES. The author of A History of Prices, like many other historical writers, takes a very cheerful view of the mediaeval plough- man. He was, in comparison with the wages now current, very well paid, and had many privileges that have either grown obsolete altogether or have dwindled into some form of payment in kind. If the amount of fish, flesh, and fowl consumed be accepted as a true criterion, his diet was better. Work was not hard, and there was no lack of holi- days and amusements. But it is impossible to show that he was well housed. Many farm-servants had to lodge with the cattle they tended. An old authority says : " Each wag- goner shall sleep every night with his horses, and keep such guard as he shall wish to answer for without damage ; and so shall the ox-herds sleep in the same way with their oxen ". Of the shepherd it is said : " He ought to sleep in the fold, he and his dog ". Very stringent regulations were issued against the use of fire. The ploughmen " must not carry fires into the byre for light, or to warm themselves, and have no candle there, or light, unless it be in a lantern and for great need and peril ". Similarly it was enjoined with regard to the cow-herd, that " no fire or candle shall be carried into the cow-house ". The custom lingers on to this day on a few farms, where the stableman sleeps above his horses, and the unmarried ploughmen couch in the hay- loft, but during the last half-century an extraordinary im- OUR COTTAGE HOMES. 93 provement has been effected in the housing of the rural working-classes. It is due to no effort of their own that it has been so. Townsmen occasionally go to country districts and discover, as by a flash of inspiration, why it is that the villages are being forsaken. They see a picturesque cottage, trellis overgrown with eglantine, roses flushing its walls, ivy clam- bering about the porch, flowers smiling before the door, and it occurs to them to enter. Then, oh horror ! what a whited sepulchre the place is ! Not an atom of beauty, not a shred of comfort is visible within. The brick floor is as uneven as the Bay of Biscay in a gale, the walls bare and damp, the ceiling low. " Imperial Caesar dead and turned to clay " (or a woollen rag more likely) is in very great request " to stop a hole to keep the wind away ". " In winter," says the presiding dame, " the draughts be horful and no mistake." I know of one " sweet little cottage with a date on it," as the young lady painters exclaim when they come that way sketching, in which the occupiers make themselves cosy in winter, by putting up a canopy of rough calico, being thus literally tent and house dwellers at the same time. The " date " is all very well, but it will not warm them. When the tourist sees that sort of thing for the first time, he straightway jumps to the conclusion that the rustics are coming to town because of the bad house accommodation in the villages. Some years ago a great deal of attention was given to the matter, and a multitude of books and pam- phlets written upon it, in sympathy with Lord Salisbury's endeavour to rouse public interest in artisan's dwellings. Half-an-hour's talk with any landowner who has seriously tried to improve the cottages would dispose of the idea that 94 THE RURAL EXODUS. Hodge migrates because his house is bad. It is most diffi- cult to instil into his mind the most rudimentary principles of morality and decency in this respect. There are ex- tremely few exceptions to the rule that agricultural labourers never leave a place because of a bad house, never go to one for the sake of a good one. " Ay, there was no room for fancy there," remarked an old woman to Ur. Atkinson when he was making inquiries about her original dwelling — one in which the family had to live, work, cook, and sleep- — it being a place eighteen feet square. In that one word " fancy " is summed up the cottager's idea of what the plain dictates of decency mean. Proprietors who have spent a fortune in building model houses — and I refer to districts where men are contented with their wages — have the very greatest difficulty in seeing that the end is achieved. If by any kind of hugger-mugger crowding together an extra bedroom can be spared, the first thing attempted is to secure a lodger, and whoever has any regard for the pea- sant's morality will agree that at every risk the lodger should be excluded from the cottage home. True, the landlord who lets a house with the condition attached that no boarders are to be taken may be said to court an accusa- tion of being a feudal tyrant, but those who bring any such charge are either extremely insincere or lamentably ignorant of English village life. In " open " villages it is notorious that nearly all the illegitimate children come to the houses where lodgers are kept, and but for the ill-assorted and forced marriages to which they are often a prelude the facts would look even worse than they do. It may seem contrary to all reason, but no competent authority will dispute the statement that the peasant is sin- gularly indifferent to home comforts that are prized in town. OUR COTTAGE HOMES. 95 Many a cottage woman will grumble loudly at being com- pelled to move from a hovel to a newly-built modern house, even when the same rent is charged. Some of her objections are due to a highly-conservative prejudice in favour of old fashions. Very likely she has baked all her life in a manner still prevalent in North Wales. The dough is placed in an iron pot with an iron cover and heaped over with a mixture of red embers, chaff, sticks, coals, and clay, which goes on smouldering and burning for hours. Early training and long practice have enabled her to bake the most exquisitely light loaves thus, for a clever woman is independent of apparatus, and she has no fancy for a modern oven. Or it may be she likes her big pot for the boiling of clothes, pigs' or cows' potatoes, etc., to be fixed opposite to the oven and cannot get on with the scullery and back kitchen of her new abode. This taste for inconvenient old fashions is temporary and will pass away with the generation. The girls who are at school now will not have learned the predilections of their grandmother. But there are other "improvements" that the poor countrywoman never will take kindly to. Those who build new cottages seldom realise how desirable it is to bring all the labour of the cottage within the smallest possible area. It has to be done by a woman whose hands are full of work, and wfeo will have still more heaped on her if her husband gets, in the current slang, " rooted to the soil ". She has firstly the food of a large family to prepare, their clothes to make or mend, and stockings to knit and darn, besides keeping the house tidy ; then she has her pig to feed, and in addition to the amount of boiling and carrying necessitated by that, if she be thrifty she will gather docks and nettles for it in spring, acorns in autumn, and also dig the potatoes 96 THE RURAL EXODUS. and cut the vegetables for it and the household. What time she can spare from these duties must be given to the allotment — for the most indulgent husband would expect her to weed and rake and hoe and reap for him. Should he become tenant or owner of a small holding these duties will be increased tenfold. In every country where small farming prevails it has been a reproach that the women have to work like slaves. It should cause no surprise that a woman engaged as has been described — and thousands are so — should have a well- grounded antipathy to upstairs bedrooms. The ascent and descent form a kind of purgatory to her, and she thinks it a grievance that she should have so many places to tidy up — for all the work will fall upon her. The daughter who earns wages will not consent to do housework as well, she stickles at it more than the men. School girls afford some little help, but they are withdrawn and bundled off to a " place " as soon as the law permits. The household is therefore prac- tically under the control and exclusive management of one woman, who is obliged to spend the greater part of her time in the apartment devoted to cooking and other domestic work. In a case of sickness it is beyond her power to be continually trotting up and down stairs attending upon the invalid. When one of her own all too frequent confine- ments takes place, she could never get on with being rele- gated to an upper storey, for it must be remembered she has neither servant nor nurse. A mother or a sister mav come for a day or two, but it is still more common for her to have no assistance except that of a village crone, who comes in two or three times a day to wash the baby and perform any other little duty that may be necessary. The rustic mother must be up and about long before a fine lady OUR COTTAGE HOMES. 97 would have dune with tin- doctor's visits ; for while she is lying cottage work is at a standstill. Homely considerations such as these account for the fact that many peasant women look upon the interior of a cara- van as the ideal house for comfort and easy work. In many parts of Yorkshire, and still more so further north, the in- terior of the ordinary labourer's dwelling reminds one not distantly of the inside of a house on wheels. There are two rooms, called in Scotland the "hut" and the "ben". Most of the work is done in one of them, and were it not so, it would be difficult to discriminate between the kitchen and the sitting-room. Both are fitted with a couple of wooden box beds that take up nearly half of the available space. A patchwork quilt and a pair of coarse blankets lie upon a mattress stuffed with chaff from the barn. The man, his wife, and a baby occupy one of these in the living- room, for he likes a few ruminative puffs from his " cutty " after the " gathering " coal is on and his family are retired, while she must be near the fire in order to pop up at any time and put the kettle on. If there are grown-up out-of-door women workers they most likely occupy the adjoining couch, while the lads and children are in the other room. Since a family of ten or eleven or even twelve — including the father and mother — is by no means unusual, it follows that with four beds — a generous allowance — three must sleep together. Proportionately with the comfort and thrift of the family will be the demands on space. Under the bed are the year's potatoes, beside it two big chests, one for flour and another full of oatmeal ; from the heavy beams hang flitches of bacon and hams, below the table a pig is in pickle. One of the first things to be bought by the young men and 7 98 THE RURAL EXODUS. women when they began to work was a chest for their Sun day finery, and, jealously locked, these boxes serve for side- tables. The remainder of the furniture is scanty, for the hind, who has become an out-and-out nomad, changing annually from farm to farm, knows better than to cumber himself with an overplus of luggage. Work is thus reduced to a minimum, and it might be thought comfort is so as well, but a tired and healthy man need not coax himself into sleeping, he will rest as deliciously on his chaff as the deli- cate-nerved townsman will on down. Close at hand to such a cottage as I have described there will often be found new and improved dwellings, each with three bedrooms on an upper storey, modern grates, and ovens, a scullery, and a larder They are evidently modelled on the better class of workmen's houses in the suburbs, and, as one would think, are in every way superior to the hovels beside them, and which they are meant to replace. But yet they are not popular with the women- folk. Nor do the men care for them either. I have seen it stated in many places— even in such an excellent work as Mr. Macdonald's edition, of Stephen's Book of the Farm, that in some counties — Essex for example — the villager pays on an average about five pounds annually for his cot- tage, but I have found a shilling a week much more com- mon a rent. In some parts of Wales as little as sixpence a week is paid. Obviously a five-roomed house cannot be let for that sum, except as a matter of charity, and the plough- man—particularly if he be prohibited from turning a penny by keeping lodgers — -grudges and grumbles at every extra coin extracted from him as hire for stone and mortar. No sooner does a family come to town, however, than these notions of domestic comfort undergo a complete OUR COTTAGE HOMES. 99 revolution. The change of scene effects an entire change of predilections. Country women look upon town as a kind of Eden for them. It is not only that feminine vanity and curiosity will be gratified by gadding about and seeing the smart things in the shop windows, hut how much easier a life theirs will be ! No more pigs to be fed and tended, no more toil in the garden or on the allotment, hardly any baking to be done ; why, it is a lady's life complete. The very water is brought into the house, whereas in the village it had to be carried from a distant well in a pitcher or with two pails and a girdle. The laborious peasant woman is not at all unwilling to undertake the care of several addi- tional rooms when she is relieved of the burden of work that in the village bowed and aged her mother and her kindred before their time. It will be seen why her influence is thrown decidedly into the scale in favour of migration. Moreover, the offer of land is less welcome to her than to her husband. It means a heavy increase to her drudgery, and what might tempt her husband to stay is an additional inducement in her eyes to get away. In Northumberland the cottages are usually thrown in as part of the wages, and I have asked many farmers if the hinds are particular about them. The almost invariable answer was that they are not at all so. An efficient plough- man on hiring day is an extremely independent personage in these times. Having a choice of masters, he makes very careful inquiry into the nature of the place to which he is asked to go. His perquisites in kind, the quality of the horses he will have to drive, his holidays, his harvest money and the employment to be given his children must all be minutely described and defined ere he will accept the prof- fered " arles ". But the sort of cottage he will have to live IOO THE RURAL EXODUS. in is a matter of quite minor importance, the subject perhaps of one casual and listless query that is in striking contrast to his eager interrogatories respecting other points. If there are four walls and a roof he will make no objection to the cottage when once he has been satisfied with the wages offered. But in this county the regular ploughmen hardly dream of such a thing as a home, that is to say a home with tender memories and long associations. How should they when they do not reckon to live in it more than a twelve- month ? Their interest in the cottage is not much deeper than that of a city tradesman in the sea-side lodgings rented for a month perhaps and never seen again. Furthermore it has to be remembered that the regularly employed agricul- tural labourer is extremely little in the house. In districts where he is boarded with the farmer he is hardly ever there during daylight unless it be on Sundays. His work-a-day rule is to go out at dawn and not return till dusk. Unlike the mechanic, he has no Saturday afternoon. The " bothy " system has been often condemned, but, at the risk of appearing ungallantly to depreciate the bucolic woman, I must say that nowhere did I find such perfect cleanliness and tidiness as in the somewhat monastic bothies, several of which I went to see during my tour. A description of one will give those who do not know it some idea of a plan carried out here and there chiefly on very large farms. It had five inmates, all young, unmarried men ranging in age, to judge by appearance, from eighteen to five or six-and-twenty. The building was old and looked like a disused saddle-room with a loft to it. When I went the family were just about to have tea. No cloth was on the table, hut it and the floor were scrubbed as clean as a ship's deck. They told me that the housework was taken OUR COTTAGE iiomi -. 101 by rotation for a week at a lime, he on whom it devolved being for that period the "Bessie" of the household. He had made the tea, cut and buttered the bread, and was boiling the eggs as I entered. The most diligent housewife might have envied the tidy hearth, the shining fender and fire-irons, the well-brushed pot and kettle. Nor did the sturdy labourers show themselves blind to the aesthetic element, though a professed " assthetician," as the American journalists call Mr. Oscar Wilde, might possibly have laughed at their decorative effects, and yet even he would have admitted the beauty of a great bunch of red and white roses placed on the table. The wall pictures formed a dream of fair women, and apparently had been cut from calendars, cheap newspapers, and advertisement sheets. As these ploughmen benedicts took their tea, their eyes were feasted on the features of Miss Fortescue and Miss Mary Anderson, Miss Maude Millet and the Alhambra ballet girls, in addi- tion to highly idealised Juliets, Beatrices, and other stock subjects for the illustration "given away with this number". The beds were up in what had once been a loft, and were the strong iron variety standing on clean-swept, uncovered deal, and looking clean to say the least of it. Until they came together at the preceding term, they had all been strangers to one another the men said. They liked the life " fine," and did not feel at all dull. On winter nights they amused themselves with draughts, and one of their number played the concertina. Occasionally they moved the table out of their living room and managed to get up a dance. "With the house servants as partners?" I suggested, and a general smile seemed to show that they were not without female visitors occasionally. Youths placed as they were are almost certain to indulge in more or less wild "larks,'" 102 THE RURAL EXODUS. which, when the prevailing influence happens to be bad, easily degenerate into absolute vice. But with all its draw- backs the bothy system is an improvement on that which it superseded. Not so very long ago each of these men would have been boarded in a strange family where the chances were distinctly in favour of there being a crowded cottage with grown-up women who would have had to sleep it might be in the same room, but certainly in close proximity to them. It was even worse when a young woman field-worker came into a strange family with full-grown sons. But the more scandalous outrages on decency have now become so rare and are so surely disappearing that it is unnecessary to do more than give them a passing reference. From a strictly moral and sanitary point of view the cottage question is of the highest importance, and for many a year is likely to occupy the attention of philanthropic statesmen. Despite the Medical Officer of Health and the Inspector of Nuisances, the villager will continue to have his "midden" too near his dwelling, or a cess-pool close to the well. The cottage supply of water is itself a subject demanding the most serious attention. But the dwellings have, as I have tried to show, nothing or almost nothing to do with the rural exodus as far as the agricultural labourer is concerned. The village tradesmen and artisans who usually stay for a much longer period in one place are perhaps the exceptions, but even in their case migration is seldom a result of deficient house accommodation. It has to be remembered that recently many of the dwellings have been vacated, and those who remain have a greater choice, while the very worst buildings are naturally the first allowed to go to ruin. But the circumstance, that so many people associate the exodus with bad houses, is itself a reason why the facts should be looked into. BOOK II. CHAPTER I. CAN WAGES BE RAISED ? We have now glanced at most of the causes which are alleged to make the English villager discontented with his lot, and seen that the problem we have to discuss is a very complicated and difficult one. It is not to be comprehended by the mere perusal of statistics, unless the reader is at the same time able to realise what we may call the village atmosphere. Before resolving to migrate, some such con- siderations as the following may be supposed to pass through the mind of the capable and intelligent peasant, it being agreed that the best man is the readiest to leave. He lives in a world of grumbling farmers and landlords, and sees for himself that the profits of agriculture have fallen, and are likely still further to decrease. By means of cheap trips, and the improved travelling facilities of our time, he has been- enabled to go abroad to town and city, learning there how much more active, stirring, and potential life may be than it is in the stagnant hamlet. He also knows that not only is he becoming awake to the gross dulness and inertia of country life, but year by year, through the fading away of the merry old customs, these are becoming more marked. A village winter at the end of the nineteenth century is both relatively and absolutely much more dismal than (103) 104 THE RURAL EXODUS. winter was at the end of the eighteenth. The rustic goes to town in part to revise his dying capacity for laughter. He wishes too that his children may have a better chance of getting on in the world than has fallen to his lot, and he finds in the village a very defective educational arrangement. So he is in search of a school also. Moreover, in food, dress, and ways of thinking, he is gradually becoming like the city artisan, thanks to cheap newspapers, cheap town tailors, and other enterprising tradesmen. To blame the peasant for entertaining thoughts like these would be most unreasonable and unjust, since they are the natural products of the many stimulating and educational forces that have been applied to his mind. We formerly had it on our conscience that he was such a dull, contented, plodding blockhead ; it would be unfair to complain that, being wakened up out of his lethargy, he turns out to be more stirring, restless, ambitious, and aggressive than could have been calculated. Those- who are thoroughly familiar with the conditions of the problem know that it is neither practicable nor possible under modern conditions to stay this exodus, to root the peasant on the soil, to make him once more in reality if not in name adscriptus glcbce. But forasmuch as it is not conducive to the national interests that population should be all massed in a few centres, and since after all it is but a proportion of the villagers who desire to leave, there is every inducement for us to revive and develop the attractions of country life, so that enough may remain to till the soil and recruit the towns. And that this is likely to prove no light or easy task may be inferred from a declaration made in the House of Commons by the Minister for Agriculture on the 22nd February, 1892, to the effect that the agricultural CAN WAGES BE RAISED? 1 05 problem of the future was not going to be the question of foreign competition, but the difficulty of providing labour on the farms. I propose now to deal in succession with the various plans and suggestions made for the advancement of this end from whatever quarter they may happen to have come. Naturally enough many people are convinced that the only exit from the difficulty lies in an increase of wages. My experience in the village has usually been as follows : The Dissenting parson says: " Let the employers pay the poor men better and they will not leave," and the Liberal lecturer, the newspaper correspondent, and the Trades' Union representative harp on the same theme. But the squire, the vicar, and the farmer traverse the statement. They assert that Hodge has the best of the bargain, and that less than they he has suffered from the fall of prices. It would be impossible to imagine a task more difficult than that of arriving at the truth of this controversy. The voluminous writing on the subject merely confuses the reader. One author would have you believe the agricul- tural labourer to be a poor wretch starving on a pittance ; another that he is of all unskilled toilers the most comfortable. For this the reason is plain. At one time wages all over the country were nearly uniform, and seldom changed. It is now almost impossible to find two counties, or even two districts of the same county, in which either the methods of payment or the amounts paid are alike. In the same place fluctuation is either periodic or continual. Where the customary engagement is made for twelve months the scale is annually revised at the March hirings ; where it is to last for six months the same thing is done bi-annually at the "statis" or statute fairs, but it is inaccurate to talk of a 106 THE RURAL EXODUS. scale, for the bargains are as a rule individual in cha- racter, i.e., each contract is made separately between man and master. Many farmers courteously gave me their wages'-book to inspect for myself when I questioned them, and I found that, especially on large holdings, where say a dozen hands, were employed, that scarcely two workmen were paid exactly at the same rate. It was com- mon for the tenants to explain that a good man was worth his weight in gold to them, an inferior man dear at any price. A single illustration will suffice to show the nature of the innumerable contradictions to which this state of things gives rise. My first quotation will be from Life in Our Villages (Cassell & Co., 1891), and I make it without desiring to cast any imputation upon the good faith of the frank and interesting author, despite the fact that his work has a very perceptible political purpose informing it. " In Essex," he says, " so far as I have seen it, I don't think it would be far wrong to put down the income of an able-bodied labourer at from five to ten pounds in harvest, and for the rest of the year ten or eleven shillings a week, when in work"- — the italics are mine. He had just above, on page 36, quoted a labourer who said: ''Many's the time as I've been home with five or six shillings for my week's pay ". Compare this with the following, for which a very able and trustworthy writer on agriculture is responsible — I refer to Mr. James Macdonald of the Farming World, under whose editorship a thoroughly revised edition of The Book of the Farm appeared in 1891. His account is that : " In Essex a horsekeeper or ploughman is paid as follows :— CAN WAGES UK RAISED? I07 Fifty-two weeks at 14s. per week Extra for hay-making, four weeks Do. in harvesting. Cottage ..... Firewood, beer money, etc., say ^36 8 o 1 10 o 3 10 o 500 I 2 O Total .... ^"47 10 o This is the rate for the best men. Ordinary men get about is. per week less. In the neighbourhood of London the rate of wages is higher by two or three shillings a week. On the other hand, in counties away from London the rate is lower, 10s., us., and 12s. per week, with similar per- quisites, being paid in several English counties." Let us put side by side with these very divergent state- ments the estimate formed by a leading Tory journalist, Mr. T. E. Kebbel, whose book on English Country Life was also published in 1891. To adduce earlier authorities would be to incur the rebuke that the past is being placed in contrast with the present. This is Mr. Kebbel's account: "It appears on the whole that the total yearly income of an ordinary English day labourer, including both wages and perquisites of every kind, ranges from about ^50 a year in Northumberland to a little over ^30 in Wiltshire and other south-western counties. This gives an average of ,£40 a year. But it is only the exceptionally low wages paid in a few counties which pulls down the average even so low as this. In the eastern, midland, northern, and south-east counties, it is commoner to find the sum-total rising to ^43 and ^44 than sinking to ^37 or ^38. Shepherds, waggoners, and stockmen are paid at a higher rate, and their wages average about ^50 a year." Every one who has impartially studied both sides of the IoS THE RURAL EXODUS. controversy will admit that the Liberal journalist and the Tory journalist almost invariably arrive at views as an- tagonistic as these are, even where there is not the slightest reason to suspect wilful misrepresentation, such as is com- monly practised in the less respectable party prints. The error is not that of the reporters, but of those who supply them with the information. A Radical journalist on being sent to the villages asks the men themselves how they are paid, and of course is answered so as to make out the worst possible case. The Englishman's right to grumble is not allowed to lapse when the labourer has a chance of putting it into operation, and, depend upon it, he will paint his position in very dark colours if he has the opportunity. He would not be human if he did not. In his struggle for life the smallness of his income is being continually impressed on him. He exaggerates his toil, and minimises the reward of it. And the Radical scribe has no check upon him, for the Dissenting minister and the others who yield him infor- mation are also touched with the bias that springs from keen partisanship. Moreover, Radical journalists are under great temptations to make the worst of things, and almost invariably confine their journeys to a few bad districts that are the plague spots of English agriculture. It is the recognised manoeuvre for producing the harrowing picture that is in request, for portraying the down-trodden serf in his misery. l!ut the Tory commissioner is under equally strong temp- tations to give an unconsciously false view of the situation. He trusts largely to the farmer, the squire, and the parson, and all three of them are inclined to take an exaggerated view of Hodge's income. Were he paid a fixed and definite sum in cash there would be no room for mis- CAN WAGES BE RAISED? 109 representation, but the giver of payment in kind is always inclined to value it more highly than the receiver. The servant maintains he has a grievance ; the master, whether it he a case of the wish being father to the thought or not, inclines to attrihute his discontent to those " pestilent agi- tators ". On the Conservative side political bias is as marked as on the other. These considerations make me chary of venturing upon any definite statement, though I have devoted much inquiry to this very interesting subject. Of only a very few counties is it possible to state the actual wages being paid and received, and one of the most important of these is Northumberland. There is hardly any room for dispute as regards this county. The ploughman gets his 15s. a week paid fortnightly, his "lot" of potatoes amounting to 1000 or 1200 yards, his cottage rent free, his coals led from the pit, and some minor privileges, such as pasturage for his cow, if he has one, at a very cheap rate. I asked the tenant of a very large farm — one whose regard for his servants' welfare may be judged from the circumstance that the latest comer had been eight years with him and the oldest hind was a patriarch of seventy-five who had been born in the service of my friend's father and had known no other — what was the total money value of the wage. His answer was that he was quite willing to commute the perquisites for a cash payment of 21s. a week and monthly engagements, and he would charge is. a week for the cottage. No one acquainted with it will deny that these are the prevalent wages of the district, which all the same is one that has most severely suffered from the exodus. In the county of Durham there are many farms on which the wages are quite a shilling a week better. Wages have TIO THE RURAL EXODUS. risen naturally wherever other occupations have come into competition with agriculture in the labour market. It is the great mining industry that in the North of England accounts for the comfort of the farm-servants. Similar causes have been at work in Wales, in Yorkshire and Lancashire, in Cheshire and Stafford and Warwick. Speaking in a general way, the agricultural labourer does not complain in these localities of being underpaid. If he can in his own estima- tion better himself by migration he goes to town, but his comparative contentment may be measured by the absence of agitation. Unfortunately there are many large and important areas in which the agricultural labourer hardly receives sufficient to support existence on. I am desirous of writing strictly within the limits of my own knowledge and concerning cases wherein farmer and farm-servant are in such agreement as to the facts that doubt is inadmissible, and the mention of one or two districts by no means implies that there are not others equally as bad. There are householders in Glou- cestershire tenanting pleasant cottages whose outlook is upon the " high uneven " Cotswolds, who have not more than ios. a week in money and perquisites that certainly do not come to 2s. more wherewith themselves and a young family have to be fed and dressed and lodged. How they manage to thrive in health as they do is a mystery. Again, in the neighbouring county of Wilts there is equal hardship. There are many neatly-thatched picturesque dwellings cosily hidden in nooks of the Downs, in dales through which the running water has fretted a channel, where the income is not so large. On the east coast there are even worse cases. Norfolk and Suffolk give me the impression of being at the present moment the most wretched of CAN WAGES BE RAISED? I I I agricultural counties, so far as the labourer is concerned. It was only in East Anglia that I found actual cases of able-bodied men keeping their families on a wage of eighteen-pence a day, Sundays not included. Game preservers complain of the amount of poaching that goes on, but one can hardly wonder at it. A man who has not meat to his dinner more than once out of seven times is under strong temptations to fill his pot with the first wild thing he can lay hands on. Vet I could give the addresses of agricultural labourers in Essex, Hertfordshire, and even Berkshire, where the family income is not much in excess of what I have mentioned. The extraordinary contrasts presented by the various shires tend to produce a feeling of scepticism in regard to averages. Sufficient statistics to make them trustworthy have not yet been collected, and it would be a difficult task to do so. Between admitting that many labourers are underpaid and pointing out how their wages are to be increased there is a vast difference. Parliament is about as likely to " make it felony to drink small beer " as to order that farm-servants shall be paid at a fixed and uniform rate. The only alternative is combination, but the calling of agriculture is one in which Trades' Unionism works under difficulties. During the last twenty years or so it has achiev.ed some local successes, but these seem to be transi- tory in character, and the tendency is now for wages to fall back again. In Norfolk and Suffolk I found the more intelligent labourers repentant for having gone out on strike during harvest, they attributing several failures that had taken place to their action. It is quite clear and obvious to them that their employers are not to be classed with those capitalists who have in the past amassed fortunes 112 THE RURAL i:\iiDUS. by the devices of the sweater. It is apparent to the most casual observer that no considerable profits are at present being made out of agriculture. Whenever I visit a familiar district the same monotonous facts meet my observation. Rich farmers who made money in better times declare that they are living on their savings. Tenants whose forefathers have held the same holding for generations retire from the business altogether, or take a smaller place. And it is very significant that all three branches of the agricultural calling suffer or prosper together. Where the hind is very badly paid, the farmers are usually bordering on bankruptcy, and the quantity of holdings unlet tell their own tale as to the landlord's loss. British farmers have long had a reputation for being long-headed, and it is incredible that they would allow land to go out of cultivation if they saw how to cultivate it to advantage. Moreover, if a farm falls vacant in one of the few districts that have escaped the depression, the competition for it is as keen as it used to be every- where in the palmy days of agriculture. While I was staying in Cheshire in the December of 1891 such a case actually occurred. A farmer had bought a little estate of his own in Cambridgeshire, and gave up his old holding. "Were there many applicants? " I asked the agent. "So many I got tired of opening them," he said, and he showed me a huge bundle. The farm, it may be said, was one of under a hundred acres, and forms part of the Alderley estate. If wheat land were as profitable as dairy land there would soon be the same rivalry for it. But is it not obvious that if it be not so, if tenants cannot make a livelihood out of holdings adapted for grain, it is simply impossible for combination to be effectual ? As the homely Scots proverb says: "You cannot get the breeks aff a Hielanter". For CAN WAGES BE RAISED? 113 men to unite to any purpose they must all be earning about the same wage. Again, the tendency of agricultural change is to reduce the amount of work to be done. Over and over again I have been told by successful farmers of my acquaintance, at times when they never dreamt of my making use of their remarks, that the great secret of earning a profit nowadays is to keep down the labour bill ; that the idea is to hire as many acres as you can and employ the smallest possible number of men. Modern farmers are all in favour of that line of policy. Stock and sheep and horses need fewer workmen than ploughing and sowing and reaping. But the most promi- nent features of the latest agricultural returns is the enormous increase in pasture land. Roughly speaking, we are turning arable land into permanent grass at the rate of 100,000 acres annually. In the same period the stock of cattle in Great Britain has increased by over a million head, and horses are multiplying — especially mares for breeding — at a proportionate rate. Cows, young cattle, and sheep swell correspondingly in numbers, and there is every pro- spect of our old-fashioned farmers developing into graziers, whose ideal holding will be a big farm with big fields and hardly any cottages. In face of these facts, it does not seem worth while to argue against any sanguine belief that wages will rise ; they are much more likely to drop. Therefore, it seems a waste of time to moan over the fact and its inevitable conse- quences. It is much more sensible and practical to ask what other ways lie open for improving the condition of the agricultural labourer. I 1 4 THE RURAL EXODUS. CHAPTER II. ALLOTMENTS. The leading Liberal of Mid-Oxford, who said to the Daily Neivs commissioner: "This talk about the villages being put right by allotments is the sheerest humbug," would command the assent of every practical authority I have consulted. It is common to find, as the correspondent referred to discovered, that "the cheapest cottages, and the most thriving allotments, and the lowest wages " occur simultaneously. The rapid increase of allotments in recent years is beside the question. It is not the agricultural labourer — not even the villager whose income comes indirectly from the land, who is keen after them — but the artisan of the small towns. To demonstrate this it is only necessary to turn to the very instructive " Return of Allotments and Small Holdings in Great Britain," issued by the Board of Agriculture in 1890. At a first glance the figures appear to be most satisfactory. In 1873 there were 246,398 allotments in Great Britain, but in 1890 the number had risen to 455,005, and, though later statistics are not attainable, the increase is undoubtedly proceeding, and most likely at an accelerated pace. That it should do so is a matter for congratulation. Men who labour in mines and factories and workshops never will find a healthier, wiser, or more profitable amusement for the spare hours which they are bent on having than is to be derived from tilling a little patch of ground. A closer examination shows, however, that the demand for allotments has been much more ALLOTMENTS. 115 vigorously made in the thickly-populated than in the half- deserted districts. The report says that " the mining counties of Durham and Glamorgan show a remarkable increase since 1886, their allotments appearing to have been more than doubled in the last four years ". But the whole population of Wales seems to be concentrating itself in Glamorganshire, its inhabitants having increased by 34-4 per cent, since last census, a rise that places it easily first among the growing ex-metropolitan counties. The inhabitants of Durham have increased by i7'2 per cent., which also is an extraordinary growth, though it looks small as compared with Glamorgan. To go on with the report : " Large increases also appear in Kent and Stafford ". Kent has increased in population by i6 - 8 per cent. ; Stafford by 104. In only four English counties is a decline apparent. They are Cornwall, Here- ford, Northumberland, and the East Riding of Yorkshire. In Cornwall the population has fallen off by 2"4 per cent., and the diminution in the number of allotments is by the collectors ascribed to " the removal of country labourers to more remunerative railway work ". The population of Hereford has decreased by 4^3 per cent. Yorkshire (East Riding) has indeed had an addition of population (9-4 per cent.), but the increase is exclusively in the two districts of York and Sculcoates, the others showing a falling off. In Northumberland a similar state of things has prevailed. From the agricultural villages where allotments were once common the people have migrated to the great towns, and the half and quarter acres have either merged into the farms or been taken by the one exceptional cottager who adds rood to rood and is able to make something out of it. I l6 THE RURAL EXODUS. A single example, selected merely because I happen to have a familiar acquaintance with the locality, will illustrate the true hearing of the returns. Of Welsh counties Anglesey is one of the most typically agricultural, and naturally has, therefore, a declining population. It is credited with 652 allotments of less than an acre. but there are 65 rural parishes or townships where there is not a single one. When visiting the farms I was very much struck with this fact, although I had not at the time looked up the official returns, and was constantly inquiring how it came to be so. "The labourers never had asked for anything of the kind," was the invariable answer. They are tolerably well paid, and the district is one where the ancient and patriarchal custom of feeding the men at the farmhouse still prevails. Engagements are made for six months, and of course employment is constant ; so that in point of fact a ploughman has not suffi- cient leisure to dig and tend an allotment. His cottage garden affords a constant supply of vegetables for his table, and it would be of no avail for him to grow them for sale, as his neighbours are as well off as himself. In the little villages, or rather hamlets, therefore, no one wants an allotment. How different is the case when you come to a little town ! Out of the total 652 allotments of under one acre in Anglesey no fewer than 475 are credited to Holyhead. For one of these, if it happens to fall vacant, there is invariably a keen competition, and were the landlord — as he has often been pressed to do— to part with the land for building purposes, great would be the consternation of the tenants. To the working men of a little town an allotment means a substantial addition to income. Most of those at ALLOTMENTS. T 17 Holyhead are a sixteenth of an acre in extent only, and the rent charged for that portion of land is 7s. 6d. annually. Several of the artisans who hold them claim to have made over seven pounds in cash last year out of the produce they sold, besides keeping their own tables well supplied with vegetables. Wherever there is sufficient population to constitute a market there is an eager demand for plots of land, and it is to be hoped that every endeavour will be made to meet it. To a man who, in the stifling atmosphere of a crowded shop or workshop, has all day been engaged on labour that demands care, attention, and nicety of touch, rather than muscular exertion, it must be a very bracing exercise and a most healthy pleasure to work for an hour or two under the open sky among his own plants and berries and with the scent of the newly dug earth rising about him. But when I endorsed the statement that low wages and thriving allotments usually go together, I did not refer to the market gardening of industrious townsmen. It was of the village allotment I was thinking. Let us try and see what a rood of land means to the average agricultural labourer. It is indisputable that where he is well off otherwise he cares little about it ; where he is badly off his land hunger is most ardent. Passing from county to county' I have frequently been amazed at the vast difference in the ideas of the rustics. Talk to those of Norfolk or Wilts about allotments and they will listen and talk back with brightness and interest for hours ; setting forth their grievances as to situation, rent, and the plans they would like to carry out. Go into Cheshire or to a Durham farm — not to a mining district remember — or to Northumberland, I iS THE RURAL EXODUS. and it is found that the subject lias lost all interest. A land agent on a large scale told me he did not believe that in all the well-tilled district between the Wansbeck and Tweed there had been a single application- for allotments, and one Kindly owner who insisted on his men each having one was asked to take them back again. The truth is that an allotment in a purely rural district comes to be neither more nor less than a bad substitute for payment in kind. A labourer who earns only a matter of twelve shillings a week will grasp at it as a means of staving off absolute starvation. Besides, it is a deplorable fact that where wages are lowest employment is least constant. Thus in Essex say a ploughman has days of enforced leisure, when, if he did not work on his allotment, he would be absolutely idle. But a Northumbrian hind with a twelve months' engagement, and hours that last nearly from dawn to dusk, cannot work both for himself and his master. He regards digging even his garden as a most unwelcome addition to his toil. It is not the change to him that it is to the artisan. The arrangement by which he shares in the produce of his master's land is infinitely more satisfactory. Nor is it possible to job off refuse on him, which is the grievance in other counties where there is payment in kind. His crop is his own from the moment it is planted, and, like his master, he takes the luck of the seasons. Were all farm-servants equally well off there would be no demand for allotments on their part. A piece of ground is, however, an invaluable help to those whose employment is casual or inconstant in character, though even then the benefit is indirect. The idea of cultivating a village plot for the market is too absurd to require examination, and would be so if it were for nothing ALLOTMENTS. 119 save the cost of carriage from any ordinary rural neighbour- hood. But to an industrious man, whose hours of work are not very long, the tenancy of a quarter of an acre of land may mean the difference between semi-starvation and comparative comfort. More than this he cannot attend to thoroughly under spade cultivation. If a plough has to be employed, it is better, for the sake of clearness, to consider the plot as a small holding, though there is really no essential difference between them. Over all England there were in 1890 a little over 144,000 holdings of more than one and less than five acres, and a vast majority of these are held by labourers, who cultivate them and carry on some other pursuit as well. I have gone over villages in which the jobbing gardener, the tailor, the shoemaker, the carrier, and their kind had each a holding classified thus. People with single and half acres generally work them on the same plan. Usually the plot is divided into two breaks. One the tenant manures very thoroughly and sets with potatoes, sowing the rest with some kind of grain, the crops being taken year and year about. The object of this simple rotation is plain enough. In his mind's eye the labourer has his pig all the while. He will feed it, and to a great extent his family also, on the roots. The corn provides bedding for it and manure for the land against next seed- time. With cabbages in his garden, a huge pit full of potatoes, and flitches of bacon adorning his kitchen, the peasant may face winter with a bold heart. It is impossible for him to die of want. But except where the character of the district renders it practicable for a labourer to climb steadily from a small tenancy to a large one, this style of allotment is attended with serious disadvantages. Firstly, there is the worry of 120 THE RURAL EXODUS. getting a plough. Visionaries have drawn many fancy pictures of the ideal village community, where every house- holder will have his plot of earth and the cultivation will be accomplished by co-operation. One would possess a harrow, another a plough, number three a cart, number four and number five each a horse, and so on, and they would manage to get on by a system of borrowing and lending. The dreamers of such fantastic dreams as these know ex- tremely little either of English villagers or English agriculture. It is a regrettable feature of humanity that wherever a few people are gathered together, envy, hatred, backbiting, and jealousy exist to an extent unknown in larger communities. The greater a city is the less are these passions manifested. One may fancy a village street on a fine day in April, when the gardener and the tailor both want their "taters" set, and the stubborn carter is bent on going off with the horse for a load of coals. Again, in our uncertain climate it usually happens that all who are engaged in agriculture want the same imple- ments on the very same day, and the heartburnings that would ensue among the multitude of claimants for the village plough or the co-operative harrow are more easily imagined than described. These ill-feelings would be deepened by the endless disputes sure to arise in regard to breakages and repairs. Hodge is not very careful of other people's property. Mr. Albert Grey, who has had some experience of co-operation, says if the gateposts were a hundred yards apart, he would contrive to run his cart-wheel against one of them. In villages where there have been acre and half-acre allotments for the last three or four generations the difficulty is usually surmounted in one of three ways," which may be ALLOTMENTS. 121 illustrated from the actual facts of one case. Firstly, there is a man called the "crofter," because in addition to work- ing at his calling of gardener he cultivates a croft of four acres. He can afford neither to keep nor to hire a horse, but as his employment is irregular, he is able to barter his labour for the use of horses and men and implements. He gives so many days' work to a neighbouring farmer, who, in return, does his ploughing and other work. The joiner has only half-an-acre, and, like several other village artisans, manages to coax one of the farmers for whom he works to send him a "draught" for nothing at seed-time. He finds, however, that those who ask favours must not be particular about the manner of the gift, and in the majority of years he is unable to have his plough till the farmers' work is done and the season is almost too advanced for sowing. Finally there are those who have no friendly connections with any farmer, and whose only resource is to hire a man in the village who lives by doing casual work as a carter. They complain that the expense is such a serious inroad upon the profits as to make half-an-acre hardly worth having under the conditions. One finds them continually experimenting, now trying a cottage with, and anon tenanting one without, an allotment. But in no case does an allotment of this kind keep an intending migrant from moving. The_ truth of the matter is that this small quantity of land will not under any but the most favourable conditions yield a large profit. Mr. Chaplin says he "knows scores of instances where men with a single acre, and sometimes less, have been able to make a profit of from ^5 to £8, and as much even in one case as^ioa year"; 1 but such information is of no great 1 Speech in the House of Commons, 22nd February, 1892. 122 THE RURAL EXODUS. value unless accompanied by a statement of the time and labour given to the land. He had previously referred to " the constant want of employment to which they (the labourers) have been liable, especially during the winter months". Five pounds profit on half-an-acre is a liberal interpretation of his figures, and this is just about equal to two shillings a week — no very munificent remuneration, if meant as a recompense for toil on days when the labourer would in many parts of England have been earning regular wages. And Mr. Chaplin's estimate seems more applicable to exceptional than to average cases. Sixteen pounds an acre is a very high return for potatoes, and half as much is extremely good for barley ; but that would give only jQ6 for half-an-acre cultivated as has been described. Take off jQi for rent- -no unreasonable sum, considering that such crops would be impossible except on the pick of the land — and after deducting another pound for the expenses — seed, threshing, etc. — there remains a net profit of something like ^,4. Now this sum is more than a guess or an arm-chair calcula- tion ; by questioning the most intelligent and successful allotment-holders in many different parts of the country I find that they reckon it a very satisfactory return. It is trivial in comparison with the labour involved, and is liable to be lost through the owner not being able to attend to his crop. Suppose — as happened in many a place during the windy autumn of 1891 — a rising gale is threatening to shake every grain out of the ripe corn, can you expect the farmer, instead of mustering all his available hands to save his own wide and yellow acres, to lose his year's increase by granting his men a holiday that each may save his own little patch of corn ? but it is difficult to appraise the annual value of an allot- ALLOTMENTS. 1 23 merit in money. If the peasant were unable to keep a pig, and had to buy all the butcher meat, all the potatoes, all the meal for his household, the outlay would come to more than J,\ a year, and he would never have such a full and com- fortable house. The Northumbrian labourer, however, is much better off with his "lot" among the crops of his em- ployer, since the cultivation of it involves no extra trouble and leads to no friction with his master. That is why I repeat that, as far as the agricultural labourer is concerned, a half-acre allotment is only a poor substitute for pay- ment in kind. It must be borne in mind, however, that where such a tenancy is in the nature of a small hold- ing, it is on a different footing, and must be separately con- sidered. An allotment to be of the highest service to a villager ought to be such that he can work it himself, and its extent ought to depend on the nature of his occupation. No feel- ing other than intense compassion can be felt for the south- country farm-servant who struggles with an allotment in addition to his ordinary work. He is not over-strong to begin with, for he has been ill-fed all his life, and when young was stinted and hindered in his growth by being set to heavy tasks at too early an age. Common humanity would say that the most advisable thing for him to do, after trudging wearily home from his hard day's work, is to get his supper, and as quickly as may be turn into bed, or, at any- rate, idle about in restfulness till his time for retiring comes. He is in no fit condition to go out on his allotment and engage in the severe and tiresome work of digging for several hours more — work that has no pleasure to him, for all day long he has had enough and to spare of mother Earth and the open air. Only the most wretched and worst-paid 124 THE RURAL EXODUS. specimens of the class would think of undertaking anything of the kind, and with them the tenancy of an allotment must often mean the heaping of more toil upon the women and children. As to the farm-labourer saving anything out of the proceeds, it is not in the slightest degree likely that he will attempt it. He is at the beginning living too close to the borders of mere subsistence, and would be only too glad to add a little butter to his bread or clothe himself more warmly with the proceeds of this very painful labour. It is not in such circumstances that a man opens a banking account. But this is no argument whatever against the principle of allotments. In our country villages there are thousands of poor cottagers whose employment is neither so hard nor so regular as that of the farm-servant, and to whom digging is not drudgery, but healthy exercise. Most likely too the artisans and casual labourers of the village, having far more time on their hands, and taking a pleasure in the work, will make more out of their plots than the agricultural labourer could. And if the rural exodus is to be arrested at all, it will be by making all classes more comfortable — the country cobbler as well as the farm- servant. It is beyond hope of course that the privilege of digging and hoeing a quarter of an acre of land will ever tempt people to stay in the village, or induce the migrants to come back, but in this case every little helps. And at all events the multiplication of allotments wakens a new interest in the soil, from which the working man was in some danger of be- coming divorced. Doubtless a proportion of those who, by the new facilities, are led to try their hands at the cultivation of a quillet will develop a taste for agriculture that will SMALL FARMS. 125 eventually lead them up the agricultural ladder that states- men are bent on strengthening — from the allotment to the small holding, from the small holding to the moderately- sized farm, from the farm to ownership. At almost any cost it is desirable to strengthen and encourage in country people an interest in and love of tillage. That is the only affection which will worthily replace the taste for the street and the music-hall. CHAPTER III. SMALL FARMS. There is a passage in Major Craigie's latest report (issued in the beginning of 1892) on agriculture that is contrary to the impression produced by traversing the rural districts. It is as follows : "The total number of returns from occupiers of land, and of those obtained by estimates where occupiers omitted to return the schedules, . . . 15578,474. This is again a larger total than last year, and compares with 577,841 in 1890, with 574,840 in iS89, 570,206 in 1888, and 563,119 in 1887." On these facts he comments thus: "These totals, after making reasonable allowance for occupiers with more than one holding, and for a possibly more exhaustive collection from the minor holdings, suggest a continued if slight increase in the number of persons occupying land, the collectors again attributing the aug- mented returns to an extension of the process of sub-divi- 126 THE RURAL EXODUS. sion of holdings which has been going on in recent years ". Now compare this official statement with that of an observer recording simply what he sees. "Wherever I have been," writes the Daily News commissioner, "I have found, as I have repeatedly said, that as a rule almost without exception population has been dwindling and small farms have been consolidating into large ones." Many passages from my own contributions to newspapers might be quoted to the same effect. The growth of large farms by the disappearance of small ones has been a constant theme with many of us. Before proceeding to deal with what is only an apparent contradiction, it will be useful to bring under the reader's notice a table, compiled by Major Craigie for another return, which shows that the number of occupiers of small tenancies of land is very much larger than is generally supposed. These are the figures : — Small holdings other than allotments not exceeding fifty acres in extent ........ 409,422 Allotments detached (under one acre) .... 455,005 Railway allotments detached, under one acre (as returned in i8« 6 ) 39.i'5 Garden allotments of and over one-eighth acre attached to cottages (as returned in 1886) ..... 262,614 Railway allotments of and over one-eighth acre attached to cottages (as returned in 1886) . . . . 6,142 Potato ground, cow runs (as returned in 1886) . . . 128,448 Total 1,300,746 Now, to return to the conflicting statements with which we started. The impeccable and official witness says that "the process of sub-division of holdings is going on"; the SMALL FARMS. 127 independent and unofficial witness that "small farms have been consolidating into large ones ". From the figures we are bound to admit that, taking the country as a whole, the number of occupiers small and great is very large, and is steadily increasing ; yet it is equally beyond question that in many of the most important agricultural districts the opposite tendency prevails. Hardly any trustworthy writer on the topic has failed to comment on it. The explanation lies in the extreme diversity of districts and the vary- ing conditions of tillage. In some counties the small holding flourishes amain ; in many others it is a dead failure. Let us see from the examination of typical examples where and how small farming succeeds, where and how it is a failure. For the former of these purposes there is no county like Che- shire. It is a local proverb there that nobody can tell where the small farmer begins and the labourer ends. The ladder requires no mending, it is complete already. Nearly every labourer has his little holding, and if he be industrious and prudent it is the landlord's interest to promote him step by step from a larger to a larger one, till he be able to quit service altogether and devote all his energy to his farm. Ncr need that be the end of his career. It is not unusual for the farmer to gather and save till he is himself able to buy a little estate and work out his destiny as a landowner. The constitution of an estate worked on these principles may be exhibited by a typical example. Writing to the St. James's Gazette under the date of 8th December, 1891, in confirmation of an account I had published of the Cheshire method of agriculture, Lord Egerton of Tatton gave the following table to show how the farms are graded in size on his Cheshire property : — 128 THE RURAL EXODUS. c c ° c ° C 8 C in E^ c 8 V M u N u •" u ~ U M t> M C f> n t " £ C etwe and 8-g K TO f a % a N M-4 N CQ K -n «g «a « 8 m M H CI 26 46 23 22 36 24 7 1 = 185 I do not know what is the case on Lord Egerton's estate, but as regards other properties on which I had facilities for full investigation, I found that not a cottage was empty, hardly a tenant was in arrears, and when a vacancy occurred there was a perfect scramble for it. From these facts the inference seemed plain that under certain conditions there is no such thing as rural discontent. Up to a certain point the investigation was the pleasantest I had undertaken. I had been to the North, I had been to the South, I had been to the East, I had been to the West, and was heart-sick and weary of the gloom and discontent that seemed to have permanently settled on the once happy English shires. But here was a peasantry contented, farmers who were making money, landlords not driven into economy by a shrinkage of the rent-roll. The labourer requires no capital save his own good muscle and a brave heart. He takes his acre or his two-acre holding and works and saves till he can exchange it for one of those between two and ten acres. One or two men I found in Cheshire deriving their income exclusively from a farm of eleven or twelve acres, but usually the tenant would scarcely attempt to stand alone until able to hire at least twenty acres. How much more interesting life must be to him than to those less fortunate brethren of his who from year's end to year's end toil on without -MALL FARMS. 129 daring to entertain a hope that better times will come and the drudgery end, or at least meet with a fitting reward. The element of sadness creeps in only when one reflects that it would he impossible to reproduce this state of things under other conditions. Small farms do well in Cheshire, because its situation and character are peculiarly adapted to them. A glance at the landscape tells you why. During the season when other districts show wide expanses of grey stubble and dark ploughland the Cheshire heights and hollows still are green. The combined science of all the agricultural colleges in England could not produce on say some of the chalky subsoils of East Anglia, the thick perma- nent pasture that lies here like a green heavy carpet on the clay. In that lies the explanation of the mystery. The cow has saved Cheshire. For a working man to look after two or three acres of meadow in addition to performing his usual tasks is a very light matter as compared with what it would be to dig or otherwise work a much smaller quantity of arable. That is one obstacle to the extension of the system, but Lord Egerton does not consider it insuperable. " This subdivision of farms is more easy in a dairy district," he says, " but it is applicable to all parts except the sheep farms in the South and East of England." One cannot easily fall in with this sanguine view. In addition to the suitability of its soil, Cheshire is very favourably placed, inasmuch as it has for neighbour the most populous of the English counties. At the last census there were in Lanca- shire 3,926,798 inhabitants, a large proportion of whom are customers for whom these small holdings are cultivated. But while pointing out that every county has not like 130 THE RURAL EXODUS. Cheshire the neighbourhood of great towns, an extremely suitable soil, a long farming tradition and a special fame for dairy work, it ought also to be kept in mind that there is abundant room for the development of this industry. In 1890 we imported ^22,086,000 worth of butter, margarine, cheese, and eggs, the total value of these imports being in 1880, ^19,468,000, and in 1S70, ^11,170,000; the quan- tity has thus been nearly doubled in twenty years. While our own farmers were complaining of semi-starvation, the Canadians discovered in England a market for eggs and sent no fewer than 2,000,000 to our markets in 1890. These facts show that the small dairy farmer has a splendid field before him. Nor is he at a great disadvantage from working on a small scale ; rather the opposite. Several organisa- tions are in existence for the collection and sale of his products, and the articles he deals in are those which require very careful superintendence in the making. A large farmer whose work is done by servants is unlikely to produce butter and cheese of excellence equal to that attained where a keenly interested wife or daughter manages her own dairy. As a contrast to the thriving dairy farms of Cheshire it may be useful to describe one of many wretched holdings in a district where tenancies and estates alike are large and where the cultivator on a small scale is getting rapidly squeezed out of existence. How land is held in the neigh- bourhood will be shown by excerpts from the estate-books of four adjoining properties. As I am precluded from mentioning the names of the owners, I distinguish the estates by letters of the alphabet. The numbers indicate the acres on each farm : — SMALL FARMS. I3 1 A. B. C. D. Acres. Acres. Acres. ACKKS. 947 9 3 9 586 40 30 10 295 -215 173 21 5M 271 309 3i 33o 424 354 45 60 463 386 60 537 557 580 7 2 1072 558 667 141 532 618 583 324 443 625 424 448 1479 426 406 12 565 543 580 73o 295 557 J 4 255 919 3H 339 821 942 1603 Total 14,659 5259 3085 1563 It will be noticed that some of these farms are so large, that in Cheshire each would be considered in itself an estate of respectable size, and that even in D, the smallest of the pro- perties, there are holdings of over 400 acres. I can very well remember small farms in the district that gradually have" been merged in larger ones, and even a stranger might ascertain from the fact that on a single holding two or even 132 THE RURAL EXODUS. three sets of farm-buildings exist that the process of con- solidation has been going on. In many cases, however, he would not suspect the true state of affairs. Here are corn and hay ricks in the stackyard, carts under the shed, cattle and foals in the yard, pigs, ducks, geese, pigeons, and such "small deer" trotting or flying or swimming everywhere. Smoke is rising from the old-fashioned red-tiled farmhouse, standing in the midst of a garden full of fruit-trees that ex- hibit no symptoms of neglect, and also from the thatched cottages where the lahourers live. The explanation is that when the tenant of the adjacent holding took over this one he saw that it would be convenient to let things stay as near as could be in statu