ployed, be it further enacted that it shall be lawful for the Churchwardens and Overseers of the poor of any parish, with the consent of the inhabitants thereof in vestry assembled, to take into their hands any land or ground which shall belong to such parish, or to the Churchwardens and Overseers of the poor of such parish, or to the poor thereof, or to purchase or to hire and take on lease, for and on account of the parish, any suitable portion or portions of land within or rear to such parish, not exceeding twenty acres in the whole, and to employ and set to work in the cultivation of such land, on account of the parish, any such persons as by law they are directed to set to work, and to pay to such of the poor persons so employed as shall not be supported by the parish reasonable wages for their work; and the poor persons so employed shall have such and the like remedies for the recovery of their wages, and shall be subject to such and the like punishment for misbehaviour in their employment as other labourers in husbandry are by law entitled and subject to.

The reference to the 'poor persons so employed as shall not be supported by the parish' is significant as distinguishing them from paupers, a point to which I shall revert when I come to deal with the question of disfranchisement. Clause 13 of the same Act introduces a new power in dealing with the land. It reads:

Provided, and be it further enacted, that for the promotion of industry amongst the poor, it shall be lawful for the Churchwardens and Overseers of the poor of any parish, with the consent of the inhabitants in vestry assembled, to let any portion or portions of such parish land aforesaid, or of the land to be so purchased or taken on account of the parish, to any poor and industrious inhabitant of the parish, to be by him or her occupied and cultivated on his or her own account, and for his or her own benefit, at such reasonable rent and for such term as shall by the inhabitants in vestry be fixed and determined.

The special mention of women in the above clause is notable. Here also, as in Clause 12, it is clearly not pauper relief which is contemplated, but the provision by a public authority of land to be let on the usual terms of hiring to the able-bodied poor out of work.

In 1831 Parliament found time, despite the excitement and turmoil connected with the passing of the Reform Act, to carry still further the provision which had then already been made for previding work on the land for 'poor and industrious inhabitants.' The twenty acres which the parish might acquire for this purpose under the former Act was extended to fifty acres, and power was also given to enclose (apparently) another fifty acres of common land in order to extend the salutary and benevolent purposes' of the Act. Fifty acres of 'forest or waste lands belonging to the Crown' might also be taken for the same purpose. The year following (1832) the overseers of the poor were empowered to take fuel allotments belonging to the poor and let them to be cultivated in portions of 'not less than one fourth of a statute acre,' and not exceeding one acre to one individual, at a fair rent. These were to be allotted to 'such industrious cottagers of good character, being day labourers or journeymen,' as should apply for the same. The holders were

'held bound to cultivate it in such a manner as shall preserve the land in a due state of fertility.' All the powers herein set forth are still possessed by Guardians or Parish Councils, although the Local Government Board claims the right to say how, when, and upon what conditions they may be exercised. How far the Department is justified in this attitude, particularly in those portions relating to setting the unemployed to work, is an open question, which has never been put to the test. Nor is there anything to show that the powers conferred upon Justices, Mayors, and others, for having these portions enforced have ever been either transferred or taken away. The one thing which can be said with certainty is that the unemployed are deprived by the Local Government Board of the very ample protection which the law throws around them.

Sir Henry Fowler, when replying as quoted above, added: The law officers further advised that wages so paid would be parochial relief, and would involve the same disfranchisement as other relief under the Poor Laws.' Mr. Walter Long has since, in substance at least, said the same thing. I do not attach much weight to these opinions. Twelve years ago the Local Government Board, backed by the law officers of the Crown,' denied that the guardians had any such powers as those quoted above. I admit that the question of disfranchisement in this connection is a moot point, which has never been tested at law. Clause 35 of the Reform Act of 1832 states that no person shall be entitled to be registered (as a voter) who shall have, 'within twelve calendar months, . . . received parochial relief.' The point of my contention is that work provided at reasonable wages, or allotments let at a fair rent, is not parochial relief. However, it is to be hoped that on an early day Parliament itself will settle the matter by drawing a clear distinction between the dissolute loafer and the willing worker, driven by a hard and cruel necessity to invoke the aid of the Poor Law.

I set out on this incursion to prove my contention that the law of England empowers, by implication at least, every citizen to claim work as a right, and imposes upon the Guardians of the Poor and the Justices of the Peace the responsibility, under a penalty for failure, of providing that work. For sixty years the Guardians, stimulated by the Local Government Board, have been administering the Poor Law in such a way as to lead to the conclusion that poverty is a crime, to be punished with great severity. Every humane tendency has had to be rigorously repressed, and they have been encouraged to transform the workhouse from a refuge into a penitentiary. So steeped have they and their officials become in this theory, so hardened are they from having to deal constantly with the clever impostors and shiftless wastrels of our social wreckage, that they are totally unfitted for dealing with the case of the decent man out of work. Some new authority is needed for this task, either specially elected Councils of

Industry, or some combination of existing authorities fully equipped to deal with the organisation of labour and charged with the responsibility of bringing work free from all taint of pauperising within the reach of every applicant. Should this result in the Guardians being abolished and the relief of the destitute poor being transferred to some other authority, few will regret the change.

To afforest the waste, and plant a race of yeomen on the fertile land of Britain, would be a profitable task. Not only might our idle surplus population be thereby absorbed in the ranks of the army of industry, but our dependence upon oversea nations for supplies of food and timber very much reduced. And it is to the State we must look for the realisation of this ideal. It alone has the continuity of purpose and the financial resources necessary for such a vast undertaking. This remark applies in a special manner to afforestation, and the success which has been won in India should be an encouragement to even the timid to press forward. Germany, however, affords the best illustration of the value of afforestation. The forests of the German Empire, mostly under public control, cover 35,000,000 acres, maintain a population of 400,000, and yield a yearly revenue to the national Exchequer of about 18,000,000l. Experiments on a small scale made in this country show that wood-growing would be no less profitable if undertaken with intelligence and spirit. In 1885 a Royal Commission considered the question, and in 1902 a departmental committee of the Board of Agriculture was appointed by the House of Commons to inquire into and report as to the present position and future prospects of Forestry and the planting and management of Woodlands in Great Britain,' &c. This committee reported, inter alia, that it is shown on the highest authority that there is in these islands a very large area of waste, heather, and rough pasture or land out of cultivation, amounting in all to 21,000,000 acres, on a large proportion of which afforestation could be profitably undertaken.' Here we have a vast national asset lying unused, which might be turned to good account. The timber supply of the world is giving out, and already prices are rising in consequence. Last year we imported fir-wood valued in the Board of Trade returns at 23,000,000l. But for the almost criminal neglect of our opportunities, every stick of this might have been grown within our own shores, giving healthy occupation to thousands, and yielding ultimately a handsome addition to the nation's income.

Afforestation cannot be safely left to the caprice of individual landlords. Only the very wealthy, who could afford to wait twenty or thirty years for a return upon their investment, would care to put money in wood-growing; and even were the State to advance • the

money to landlords on easy terms, there would not be the same

guarantee that the work would be properly done as would be the case if it were being done directly by the Government itself.

The same argument, though not perhaps to the same extent, justifies us in claiming that the creation of a peasant-yeoman class is a duty which should press heavily upon the collective conscience. From every point of view, moral, physical, industrial, and economic, the cultivation of the soil is desirable. Since 1850 the number of people directly employed upon the land has gone down by 1,250,000, whilst the area of land under cultivation grows yearly more circumscribed. To this fact is to be traced largely the increasing difficulty of the military authorities to find recruits of the necessary strength and stamina. It is a long time ago now since the present Viscount Wolseley pointed out the impossibility of recruiting an army from the slums, and since then our town population has kept growing, whilst the rural has been dwindling.

It is, however, the industrial aspect of the case which appeals to me most. The beginning of that organisation of industry, on the basis of each nation supplying its own people with at least the fundamental necessaries of life, which the rapid growth of machine production all over the world will make inevitable at no distant date, can best be made upon the land. Economically, the big farm has not been a success, whilst, per contra, peasant cultivation has been proved to be so by the most irrefutable evidence. Profitable employment for the best part of a million families could be found in providing Great Britain with the garden, dairy, and barnyard produce we now import from abroad to the value of over 50,000,000l. a year. The effect upon the labour market of adding one million to the number of workers in constant employment will be evident to even the most obtuse. By relieving the pressure of oversupply from the lower-grade callings, wages, and with them social conditions, would begin to move upwards. To aim at such a result is no chimera impossible of attainment. With proper facilities for teaching and training people of both sexes to work upon the land, and the provision of small holdings of, say, from three to twenty-five acres, with security of tenure and a reasonable rent, wonders would be accomplished in the lifetime of one generation. It is a serious question with thoughtful members of the working class to know what to do with their children when they are ready to begin work, and it would be a great relief if they knew that the land offered a safe and certain means of earning a livelihood, and that every facility would be given the youth for becoming a settler. And here let me say that I am more hopeful of something of this kind being attempted with success in industrial counties than I am of those wholly given over to agriculture. One, and not the least, of the difficulties of keeping young folks in the country is the unvarying monotony of village life. Were it possible, however, to have villages large enough to maintain their

own library, theatre, and music-hall, and to have a responsible system of government, the difficulty would be largely got over. If, in addition, the villages were within easy reach by rail or tram of the big centres of population, so close in fact as to be in touch with them, the success of the effort I am suggesting would be doubly certain. Besides, the town would provide a market for the produce, a factor of no mean importance in estimating the chances of success.

Our new Councils of Industry then would be empowered to acquire land, compulsorily when necessary, and at its fair market price, to be used for any purpose necessary for setting the poor on work. Existing administrative authorities already have certain powers to acquire land for allotments, small holdings, cottages, which they may also build, and also powers to give technical instruction. Some of the formalities necessary to be gone through before these powers may be exercised are cumbrous and circumlocutory, and obviously intended to discourage any real attempt at putting them to use. It would be an easy matter for any Government to codify the existing Acts, conferring such powers upon local councils as those referred to above, strengthen these powers where necessary, simplify the procedure, and then call into being the new authority for dealing with the entire question of land and labour, and make it responsible, as the Overseers of the Poor were of yore, for providing employment for every poor applicant.

Whether the New Authority should be specially elected, or be simply a combination of existing authorities, is a minor point, upon which there is no need to enlarge at this stage. The point requiring to be emphasised is the need for the New Authority. Existing councils, urban and rural alike, take small cognisance of their powers under the Allotments and Small Holdings Acts. These are regarded as being very subsidiary to the main work for which the Councils were instituted, and except where a good deal of pressure is applied, they remain a dead letter. In the rural districts, where the bulk of the population is at the mercy of the farmer and the landlord—both hostile forces-it is difficult, if not impossible, to apply the necessary pressure, while in the populous places the difficulty is to find the land at a reasonable price. The administrative area of the new Councils should be extended enough to include both urban and rural areas, and thus secure upon them representatives of all interests and classes. The pressure of the town, with its teeming life, would thus brought to bear upon the inertia of the country with its idle land. By linking up the new Councils with the Ministry of Industry, and

through

that department with the Board of Agriculture, the Board of Trade, and the Commissioners of Woods and Forests and Crown Lands, they would be able to co-operate with these various departments in carrying out their different powers in much the same way as the local educational authorities do in carrying on their work