characteristic of the later period of enclosure. The increased demand for corn, arising not only from the causes already mentioned, but also from the effect on food supplies of the Napoleonic wars, stimulated the extension of corn-growing, and there was no incentive to increase grass land at the expense of arable. The enclosure of the grass commons was, in its result, the tragedy of the movement in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Thousands of poor people were deprived of a right of pasturage which for generations had been regarded as belonging to them and their forbears. Adjacent to every grass common were cottages, the inhabitants of which had from time immemorial used the pasturage for the maintenance of cows, geese, donkeys, etc. The right was recognised as attached to the cottage and not to the occupier personally, but it was regarded, as on the countryside ancient institutions are apt to be, as sacred and inviolable. But the majesty of the law, with its subtle interpretation of obscure phraseology and its meticulous precision where rights of property were concerned, declared that the occupier, as such, had no right of common unless he either owned the cottage or could establish in law a prescriptive right attached to the occupation. To the cottagers this seemed an arbitrary decree, unjust and unreasonable, an edict of harsh authority devised for their undoing. If the cottager were, in fact, legally entitled to a right of common, it was difficult to establish it. He had to make his claim in due form by a specified date. Illiterate and slow-thinking, he was not likely to understand the fate that threatened him unless he was befriended by some more intelligent and better educated person. Even if he succeeded in establishing his claim the compensation awarded to him afforded little satisfaction. It was very significant that Arthur Young, who was at first the most ruthless advocate of enclosure, became remorseful when he realised later the full effects of the movement he had so fervently supported. At the end of the eighteenth century he made an examination of the Acts recently passed, and declared: 'By nineteen out of twenty Inclosure Bills the poor are injured, and some are grossly injured.' He quoted a Commissioner, who had acted in several enclosure cases, as lamenting that he had been accessory to the injuring of 2000 poor people, at the rate of twenty families per parish. The poor in these parishes,' observed Arthur Young, may say, and with truth, "Parliament may be tender of property; all I know is that I had a cow, and an Act of Parliament has taken it from me." He pleaded insistently for provisions in the General Enclosure Act of 1801 to meet the difficulties of the poor. To pass Acts,' he wrote, 'beneficial to every other class in the State, and hurtful to the lowest class only, when the smallest alteration would prevent it, is a conduct against

'

which reason, justice, and humanity equally plead.' He proposed a scheme for setting up half a million families with allotments and cottages, 'for,' as he remarked, 'a man will love his country better even for a pig.'

Memories in the rural districts are very tenacious, and the story of the severance of the peasant from the land by the enclosures is not forgotten. The decadence of the agricultural labourer is dated from that period, and attributed to that movement. It was by no means the only cause. The Speenhamland system, the old Poor Law, the harsh repression of the desperate efforts of the labourers to call attention to their grievances, the denial of the right of combination, all have left their scars on the villages.

The times were out of joint. Parliament, notwithstanding the presence of a few men of courage and conviction, was unrepresentative and corrupt. Even honest and well-meaning men had their fears excited, and their judgment warped, first by the French Revolution and then by the menace of Napoleon. It was thus not only in the rural districts that there was a lack of sympathy and statesmanship in dealing with social problems. The bitterness with which, to this day, the agricultural labourer regards enclosure, is really the fruit of many evils which his forefathers endured, but among which the theft of the commons,' as he regards it, stands out as the most sinister event within the range of his limited knowledge of history.

It is easy to argue that the enclosure movement was essential to the progress and prosperity of the nation, that it was a necessary and, indeed, inevitable process of economic development, and that it served in the long run the best interests of the people. All this is true. But these benefits were bought at a great price. The solidarity of the villages was shattered; the peasants, who were an integral part of the agricultural community and had their humble stake in the land, which was as valuable to them as his estate to the largest landowner, were severed from the soil, and thereafter regarded themselves as mere appendages to agriculture and not a constituent element of it. Nothing is more significant than the attempts which are now made to convince the agricultural labourers that they have a common interest with farmers and landowners in the prosperity of agriculture. The interest of the labourer as a vital factor in the cultivation of the soil should be self-evident to him without argument. Any land system rests on an insecure basis unless in some way or another all those who are engaged in agriculture can, each in his degree, feel a direct interest in its fortunes, unless, in other words, it is possible to restore the solidarity of the agricultural community which the enclosure movement destroyed.

Much has been attempted, and something has been effected,

in recent years to repair the injury to the countryside through the dissociation of the labourer from the land. Some of the latter Enclosure Acts provided allotments, although in too many instances they were inadequate in quantity and inconvenient in situation. Early in the last century a few landowners, more farsighted than the majority of their contemporaries, set an example, which was gradually followed by others, in the provision of allotments and cottage gardens, and, at long last, the State took up the task of restoring, in some measure, to the present generation of agricultural labourers that access to the land of which Parliament, in its unwisdom, deprived their forefathers.

The problem of the countryside remains unsolved. It is not, as is often alleged, that the State is indifferent. The annals of agriculture during the past forty years are punctuated by official inquiries, by Acts of Parliament, and by administrative measures, all devised to redress the grievances and ameliorate the conditions of agriculturists. Yet the recurrent ruin of agriculture has almost become a byword. Every bad season, such as 1879, and every slump in prices, such as occurred in 1893, is proclaimed a crisis, as indeed it is. Such crises in agricultural affairs are in the inevitable order of things and occur periodically in every age and in every country. The misfortune is that attention is concentrated on the crisis, palliatives are spasmodically adopted, and the real problem of the future of British agriculture is not comprehensively considered.

The pioneers of agricultural progress did not take short views. Fluctuations in farming, 'crises' in agriculture, were familiar in the eighteenth century as in the nineteenth and twentieth. The troubles of individual agriculturists were no less, the vicissitudes of the seasons afflicted the husbandman as they always have done and always will do, prices from one year to another oscillated violently, while farm live stock were ravaged incessantly by disease. But those who considered the future of agriculture looked over and beyond these incidental circumstances. They had a vision of a better system to meet the new conditions of national life, and they set themselves resolutely, and even ruthlessly, to carry out the changes which they believed to be necessary. British agriculture needs to-day men with the vision, the determination and the persistence of Coke, of Bakewell, and of Arthur Young.

It is to be noted that the agricultural revolution of the eighteenth century was, in the minds of those who gave it impetus, a natural development of the existing system. They were in intention evolutionary, not revolutionary. According to their lights, they were inspired by an ideal which they sincerely and steadfastly believed to be for the advantage of the whole community.

Many who actively co-operated were, of course, actuated solely, or mainly, by self-interest, and all concerned failed lamentably to consider the social cost of economic progress. But the object in view was to develop the old agricultural system, which had ceased to be sufficient or suitable, into one which would be adapted to the altered requirements of the nation.

The agricultural problem of the twentieth century is different from that which presented itself in the eighteenth century. Then the only object was to increase the output of the agricultural land of the country, so as to provide for the maintenance of a greater, and a growing, population. This was then, and for some time afterwards, a possible, as well as a desirable, end to accomplish. To that end all means were held to be justified, and any sacrifice involved was regarded as inevitable. The Juggernaut of economic progress took no heed of its victims.

There are many belated devotees of a worn-out creed who regard the agricultural problem of to-day as identical with that which presented itself to Arthur Young. They have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing. Few probably believe that the land which supported 12,000,000 a century ago can equally support 38,000,000 now, but they see nothing in the conditions of the country to-day to alter their view that the agricultural problem is of precisely the same order, and that the system under which the maximum amount of produce can be obtained is that which is best, regardless of any other considerations.

Nevertheless there are signs of an awakening consciousness that the economic angle is not the only one from which this problem can, or should be, viewed.

The following sentences, though admittedly torn from their context, contain glimpses of this truth:

The waste of good land on games or game is inconsistent with patriotism. There will be plenty of room for game or golf in moderation, but too much game, or golf links carved out of fat land, make an inroad on the production of foodstuffs which can no longer be defended. . . .

We entertain no doubt that landowners, farmers and agricultural labourers alike realise the greatness of the trust reposed in them, that they will rejoice at the recognition of the fundamental importance of agriculture to the national life, and that they will do all, and more than all, that their country demands of them. . .

An owner or occupier of land must hold it with a full sense of his responsibility and duty to use it for the security and welfare of the nation, and in case of flagrant abuse the intervention of the King's officers is justified.3

These sentences embody a conception of agricultural land as a 'trust' and lead up to a proposal for the establishment of administrative machinery to ensure that the trust is fulfilled and

Report of the Agricultural Policy Committee, 1918 (Cd. 9078).

that the trustees-i.e., landowners and farmers--can be called to account for failure to make use of the land owned or occupied by them.

This proposal was made on economic grounds, to secure the maximum output of foodstuffs. It was linked up with a proposal for giving subsidies to those who grew corn, but it applied to all land, whether arable or grass, and, indeed, extended to woodland. Its social implications, therefore, were wider than the immediate economic purpose, and the principle on which it is based is one of far-reaching significance.

The Agricultural Policy Committee made another suggestion in which they came near to attaining the boldness of the agricultural reformers of the eighteenth century. In an appendix to their report they say:

It was suggested to us by Mr. R. E. Prothero, M.P. [now Lord Ernle], Sir H. Trustram Eve, and by Lord Milner, that the time had come for a rearrangement of some of our villages to meet present needs, a form of re-enclosure, in fact, which would have as its primary object an amelioration of the circumstances of the cottager and labourer. The following is an outline of the plan submitted to us :

If a wish for reconstruction exists in any village, application should be made to the Board [now the Ministry] of Agriculture either by the parish council on the instruction of the parish meeting or by the Agricultural Committee of the county, on the requisition of a certain proportion of the inhabitants of the parish. The Board of Agriculture should appoint a valuer to make a thorough report on the parish, showing how it might be improved on business lines in respect of small occupying ownerships, gardens, allotments, small holdings, cottages, cow commons, horse commons and recreation grounds. The instructions to the valuer should be such as to leave him complete latitude in making proposals with regard to the land in the vicinity of the village or its dependent hamlets, but should make it clear that it was no part of his duty to deal with farms in the distant parts of the parish. The valuer's report should be sent to the Board of Agriculture, who should communicate it to the parish council or Agricultural Committee, and it should be open to the inspection of all inhabitants and other persons interested. The Board of Agriculture should, through an inspector, hold a local inquiry to deal with objections to the valuer's report, and the inspector should then draw up a final scheme for the approval of the Board, setting forth in detail the changes to be effected, and scheduling the land to be acquired, the value of which would, in the case of dispute, have to be determined by the usual method where land is compulsorily taken for public purposes. The Agricultural Committee of the county should be responsible for carrying out the scheme, and the parish council for its subsequent administration, subject to the supervision of the Committee. An alternative plan would be to allow the creation of a public utility society to carry out the scheme.

It was suggested that the expenses of carrying out such schemes should be defrayed by the Exchequer, and that loans for the acquisition and adaptation of land should be advanced from public funds.

VOL. XCV-No. 563

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