CHAPTER XVII

THE EMPTY COUNTRY

Although it is a well-known fact that the increase of population of the United Kingdom is practically an addition to the urban population, it may be well to preface consideration of the land question in its relation to the national wealth and income by reminding the reader of the precise facts of the case.

If we have regard only to the technical "Urban" and "Rural" Districts, we get the following figures:

ENGLAND AND WALES: POPULATION OF URBAN AND RURAL DISTRICTS RESPECTIVELY

Urban Rural Census of Districts. Districts. 1891 21,745,286 7,257,239 1901 25,058,355 7,469,448

Thus the urban population increased by 15.2 per cent., while the rural population increased by 2.9 per cent.

Many of the so-called "Urban" Districts, however, are quite rural in character, being often small towns dependent as business centres upon the agricultural areas in which they are situated. In 1901 there were 215 Urban Districts with populations below 3,000; 211 with populations between 3,000 and 5,000; and 260 with populations between 5,000 and 10,000.[52]

Having regard to these considerations the following figures are arrived at:

(1) Classing with the Rural Districts all those Urban Districts which had in 1901 populations below 10,000 we get:

Urban Rural Population. Population. 1891 18,964,882 10,037,643 1901 21,959,998 10,567,845

This gives an urban increase of 15.8 per cent. and a rural increase of 5.3 per cent.

(2) Classing with the Rural Districts those Urban Districts which had in 1901 populations below 5,000 we get:

Urban Rural Population. Population. 1891 20,576,448 8,426,077 1901 23,803,714 8,724,129

This gives an urban increase of 15.7 per cent. and a rural increase of 3.5 per cent.

Combining the three tests, we see that the truth broadly stated is that the rural population is almost stationary while the urban population is rapidly increasing. The rural population is thus a diminishing proportion of the whole.

In 23 rural counties in England and Wales actual depopulation occurred between 1891 and 1901, ranging from a decrease of 7.5 per cent. in Montgomeryshire to a decrease of 1.9 per cent. in Cornwall.

The Census Commissioners make an interesting test of depopulation of rural areas by taking the 112 Registration Districts which are entirely rural, and which had in 1901 an aggregate population of 1,330,319. Their population at each census back to 1801 has been approximately as follows:

POPULATION OF 112 RURAL REGISTRATION DISTRICTS, 1801-1901

Increase + or Census Year. Population. Decrease - in preceding decennium.

1801 932,364 ... 1811 997,494 + 6.99 1821 1,139,137 + 14.20 1831 1,216,872 + 6.82 1841 1,288,410 + 5.88 1851 1,324,528 + 2.80 1861 1,321,870 - 0.20 1871 1,321,377 - 0.04 1881 1,313,570 - 0.59 1891 1,304,827 - 0.67 1901 1,330,319 + 1.95

The great advance in 1811-1821 was presumably due to the cessation of the long war. In 1851-1891 actual depopulation occurred, but in 1891-1901 there was a gain of 1.95 per cent. Of the 112 districts, however, 73 showed actual decrease in 1891-1901, the total increase being entirely due to an advance in a few of the districts containing mines. It is clear that in the last 50 years there has been actual depopulation of strictly rural areas.

This becomes still plainer when we examine the facts given in the table on page 237 as to the natural growth of the rural areas.

THE MIGRATION FROM THE COUNTRY

-----------------+-------------------+-----------+-----------+---------- | Population. | Increase | Excess of | Loss +---------+---------+ of |Births over| by | 1891. | 1901. |Population.| Deaths. |Migration. -----------------+---------+---------+-----------+-----------+---------- 112 Registration | | | | | Districts | | | | | entirely Rural |1,304,827|1,330,319| 24,492 | 150,437 | 124,945 | | | | | 222 Registration | | | | | Districts which | | | | | contain urban | | | | | districts with | | | | | populations under| | | | | 10,000 |4,176,219|4,215,326| 39,107 | 414,816 | 375,709 +---------+---------+-----------+-----------+---------- Total of 334 | | | | | Registration | | | | | Districts |5,481,046|5,545,645| 64,599 | 565,253 | 500,654 -----------------+---------+---------+-----------+-----------+----------

It will be seen that in a rural population of nearly 5½ millions, the natural increase by excess of births over deaths was, in 1891-1901, 565,253, but in the same time 500,654 persons left these districts either for urban England or for places abroad, so that the total increase in population was only 64,599.

Turning to the number of persons employed in agricultural operations of all kinds, the table on page 239 shows the decline which has occurred.

This extension of the table given in "Riches and Poverty," Edition 1905, p. 223, modifies it somewhat. The reduction of agricultural labourers is not so great as the crude totals suggest. It is the women and boys who have chiefly disappeared from British agriculture, and it should be observed that 248,500 wives and daughters disappeared in 1871 as compared with 1861 merely by reason of the fact that they were enumerated at the earlier date but not at the later one. According to Lord Eversley's careful analysis ("Statistical Society's Journal," 1907), the actual decline of male agricultural employment (men and boys) in Great Britain was from 1,657,000 in 1861 to 1,236,000 in 1901, or, in England and Wales alone, from 1,449,000 in 1861 to 1,079,000 in 1901. This is a serious decline, but not as great as is commonly supposed.

Nothing is commoner than the belief that the trend to the towns is only to be observed in the United Kingdom. As a matter of fact it is confined to no country and is, indeed, a world-wide phenomenon. Between 1851 and 1906 the urban population of France increased from 25.5 per cent. to 42.1 per cent. of the whole. Between 1871 and 1905 the urban population of Germany increased from 36.1 per cent. to 57.4 per cent. of the whole. In both cases the population classed as "urban" is that contained in towns with at least 2,000 inhabitants.

ENGLAND AND WALES: PERSONS EMPLOYED IN AGRICULTURE, 1851-1901

+------+---------------------------+-----------------------+ | | ADULTS | YOUNG PERSONS | |Census| (Aged 20 and over). | (under 20). | | of-- +---------+-------+---------+-------+-------+-------+ | | Men. |Women. | Total. | Boys. |Girls. |Total. | +------+---------+-------+---------+-------+-------+-------+ | 1851 |1,141,000|336,000|1,477,000|328,000|100,000|428,000| | 1861 |1,119,000|301,000|1,420,000|323,000| 60,000|383,000| | 1871 | 972,000|122,000|1,094,000|277,000| 52,000|329,000| | 1881 | 884,000| 50,000| 934,000|254,000| 11,000|265,000| | 1891 | 816,000| 40,000| 856,000|237,000| 6,000|243,000| | 1901 | 750,000| 43,000| 793,000|186,000| 9,000|195,000| +------+---------+-------+---------+-------+-------+-------+

+------+----------------------------+ | | TOTAL, ALL AGES. | |Census| | | of-- +---------+--------+---------+ | | Males. |Females.| Total. | +------+---------+--------+---------+ | 1851 |1,468,000| 436,000|1,905,000| | 1861 |1,442,000| 361,000|1,803,000| | 1871 |1,249,000| 175,000|1,424,000| | 1881 |1,139,000| 61,000|1,200,000| | 1891 |1,054,000| 46,000|1,099,000| | 1901 | 936,000| 52,000| 988,000| +------+---------+--------+---------+

I remind the reader of these facts because it is necessary to distinguish between what is true and what is untrue in the arguments used in support of the cry "Back to the Land." As a general rule the stationariness of the rural population is attributed to cheap imports, or to land tenure, or to want of housing accommodation, or to the attractions of town life, or to the higher wages offered in industrial pursuits. All these things are causes of migration to the towns, but one of the most potent causes is rarely considered. It is the application of machinery and improved methods to agriculture. To produce a given quantity of food, far less labour is required than of old. Therefore, even in a country like France, which is almost independent of imported food, it is obvious that there must be a trend townwards as the labour displaced from agriculture seeks other employment.

Thus, in considering land in its agricultural aspect _we must not regard it as containing an unlimited field of employment_. Agricultural methods will continue to improve, and the day will undoubtedly come when one man's work applied in agriculture will literally feed a multitude.

But, having made that reservation, let us look at the French and German figures in another aspect. We see that in France, although the urban population has increased, it is still much less than one-half of the whole. In Germany, again, the town population in 1910 is about 60 per cent. of the whole. In our own country, if we counted as urban population the inhabitants of all towns containing 2,000 and upwards, we should find it amount to over 80 per cent. of the whole. While, therefore, not losing sight of the reservation already made, it is clear that, in the United Kingdom, causes other than the application of machinery to agriculture have operated to produce urban congestion.

There was a time when no European country was so rich as England in men who cultivated their own land. To-day there is no country in the world in which cultivation and security of tenure are so widely divorced. Whatever the trend to the towns in other countries may be, there is no other country in which such a marked diminution in agricultural employment has occurred as in the United Kingdom. The land which bred the bowmen of Agincourt and the Ironsides of Cromwell now sends forth the men of whom Sir Ian Hamilton wrote to Mr Horsfall "I will not give you, a Manchester man, offence, if I say that their physique was hardly equal to the fine standard of their determination and courage.... It is the fault of some one that these brave and stubborn lads were not at least an inch or two taller and bigger round the chest, and altogether of a more robust and powerful build."

Looking at the industry of our people as a whole, the main fact which stands out is want of security of employment. Nearly the whole of our industrial workers are earners of weekly wages, and of our sparse agricultural population but a small proportion are owners. Compare the position of France. There, fully one-half the population are attached to the soil by virtue of ownership and secure in the mother-earth which nourishes them. They may be poor, many of these peasant proprietors, but at least they are not constantly on the verge of hunger; at least they have the glorious privilege of independence.

Our empty country-side is universally admitted to be a great national danger. It is not alone that we are so much dependent upon imported food; it is that the imported food is for the consumption of a race degenerating in the unwholesome environment of town life. Everywhere the cry of "Back to the Land" is raised, but, as though to mock that cry, it is only answered by well-to-do weekenders, attendance upon whom, in faked-up cottages from which labourers have been ousted, has become one of our many degrading trades of luxury.

We must be under no illusions. We must not believe that mature and debilitated town-dwellers can be planted out in rows to gain a living by entire devotion to agriculture. We can hope for but little from farm colonies for the unemployed. Our chief hope, here as elsewhere, is in the children. We must seek to attach our present rural population to the soil under such conditions that their children may see hope where now there is none.

How shall we secure allotments and small holdings for the agricultural labourer? Parliament in 1906-1909 has given much attention to rural problems, and the Small Holdings Act of 1908, setting up Commissions with power to make schemes for small holdings if County Councils neglect to do so, extending to eighty years the period for which money may be borrowed for the purposes of the Act, and giving powers for the compulsory acquisition of suitable land, is now in operation. The Report for 1908 shows that County Councils in England and Wales acquired 11,346 acres for small holdings and 304 acres for allotments.

We may venture to hope for better results than this, but is it asking too much of the nation, at this juncture, to broaden its conceptions? Why should we not, having regard to the extraordinary facts as to our national wealth and income, having regard to the admitted dangers of our present position, having regard to the best disposition and welfare of our 44,500,000 people upon their island home of 77,000,000 acres,—why, having regard to these things, should we not determine to secure absolute control of area, and, having secured it, to order the first essential of healthful life, proper distribution upon area?

As has been already pointed out in these pages, the 77,000,000 acres of the United Kingdom, outside the tiny spots called towns which occupy an almost negligible fraction of the whole, _produce a gross rental of only_ £52,000,000. This is the sum at which the whole of the land of the United Kingdom, save that small part which is attached to houses, was assessed to Income Tax in 1908-9. It represents the rentals of agricultural lands as they stand with all their farm-houses and other buildings, roads, ditches, fences, etc. In 1898 the Royal Commission on Agriculture valued this land at only eighteen years' purchase. Twenty times £52,000,000 is only £1,040,000,000 or about one-half of one year's income of the country. This, it will be remembered, was the valuation of land which we adopted in Chapter 5.

The question I submit for consideration is this: Is it worth our while to buy up our own birthright at the price of one-half of a single year's income?

The question should be answered with due regard to all the considerations as to agriculture, housing and the distribution of population and industries which have been advanced in these pages. The problem of the town is before us, and not alone the question of the tilling of the soil. It should also be answered with due regard to the question of food importation and the probabilities as to the continuance of cheap supplies.

In 1875-6 the gross assessments of agricultural lands—an area very little larger than at present, for, as has been shown, the largest town occupies a relatively insignificant area—amounted to £67,000,000 or £15,000,000 more than at the present time. If we had bought in 1875, then, and rents had remained the same, we should have lost capital, but would the value of the land have remained the same? In thirty years we could have created a considerable yeomanry,—men holding land from the State not in fee simple, but nevertheless in absolute security of tenure. They could have paid us rentals at which small holdings would be eagerly competed for, yet rentals larger than are at present derived by the little sovereigns of the British country-side from their tenants. Further, we should have stemmed the current of humanity which for thirty years has flowed to the towns, and done something, in the phrase of Ruskin, to "get as much territory as the nation has, well filled with respectable persons."

My point as to the value that is and the value that might be is illustrated by Sir Robert Edgcumbe's experiment with Rew Farm, in the parish of Winterbourne St Martin, in Dorsetshire. Sir Robert bought this farm of 343 acres for £5,050, made a road through it, and sold it in small holdings at prices ranging from £7 to £20 per acre. The land was eagerly taken up and the experiment has been a great success. When Sir Robert bought the land in 1888 the outgoing tenant was in financial straits—he could not make Rew Farm pay. It was rented at £240 per annum and its net rateable value was £215. It is improbable that a new tenant would have paid more than £200. Yet, under small cultivation, the rateable value of Rew Farm rose from the £215 of 1888 to £346 in 1902, a rise of 60 per cent. In the same period, the rateable value of the parish of Winterbourne St Martin as a whole fell from £2,807 to £2,073.

Apart from the question of small holdings, nothing is more probable than a rise in the value of British agricultural land to a point far beyond any yet attained. Already, within the last few years, a revolution has taken place in our wheat supplies—a revolution which has gone unnoticed by the British public, so long accustomed to its miraculous cheap loaf in the baker's shop that the miracle has become, as is the fate of all miracles, a commonplace and unregarded thing. The table on p. 245 shows the nature of the change which has occurred:

UNITED KINGDOM IMPORTS OF WHEAT AND FLOUR IN EQUIVALENT WEIGHT OF GRAIN In Millions of Cwts.

+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ |1895.|1896.|1897.|1898.|1899.|1900.| ------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ Russia | 23.0| 17.2| 15.1| 6.4| 2.5| 4.5| Roumania | 2.0| 5.4| 1.2| 0.2| | 0.7| U.S.A. | 45.3| 52.8| 54.1| 62.0| 60.2| 57.4| Argentina | 11.4| 5.0| 0.9| 4.0| 11.5| 18.7| Canada | 5.1| 6.3| 6.9| 7.7| 8.7| 8.0| India | 8.8| 2.1| 0.6| 9.5| 8.2| | Australia | 3.6| | | 0.2| 3.0| 2.9| ------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ Total of above and| | | | | | | other countries |107.2| 99.6| 88.7| 94.4| 98.5| 98.6| ------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+

+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+----- |1901.|1902.|1903.|1904.|1905.|1908. ------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+----- Russia | 2.6| 6.6| 17.3| 23.7| 24.8| 4.6 Roumania | 0.5| 2.4| 3.1| 1.5| 2.1| 1.8 U.S.A. | 66.8| 65.0| 46.7| 18.5| 14.5| 40.7 Argentina | 8.3| 4.5| 14.2| 21.8| 24.1| 31.8 Canada | 8.6| 12.2| 14.5| 9.0| 8.4| 16.8 India | 3.3| 8.8| 17.1| 25.5| 22.9| 2.9 Australia | 6.2| 4.2| | 11.4| 11.5| 5.8 ------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+----- Total of above and| | | | | | other countries |101.0|107.9|116.7|118.2|114.2|109.1 ------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----

In 1902 America sent us 65,000,000 cwts. of wheat. In 1903 this great supply fell sharply and in 1904-5 it was reduced to less than 20,000,000 cwts. In 1908 there was recovery, but this was but temporary. Sooner or later the United States supply will wholly cease. By 1925 the United States will have some 110,000,000 to 120,000,000 people to feed.

In "Riches and Poverty," 1905 edition, I wrote:—

"The United States failing, we still secured our imported wheat supplies in 1904 and 1905, but at an increased price. Canada failed, but those uncertain suppliers, India and Australia, came to the rescue. Argentina sent us more than ever before and Russia also came into the export market. But the facts as to America remind us that none of these suppliers can be relied upon indefinitely, and some of them are notoriously uncertain. Canada has done badly in 1904 and there will always be difficulties of climate to consider. Moreover, the United States will in future come into the market as a buyer and compete with us for the exports of North-West Canada and Argentina. The sum is that we cannot for the future depend upon dirt cheap wheat raised by scratch farming on virgin soil, and that, as a consequence, the price of wheat will rise. As with wheat, so, sooner or later, with many other foods. When it comes to putting more labour and manure, and less luck, into farming in new lands, then conditions will be equalized, prices of produce will rise, and the price of British land will rise also."

It is now (1910) only necessary to add that the price of wheat has moved thus:

THE RISE IN WHEAT

British Foreign Indian and Wheat. Wheat. Colonial. _s._ _d._ _s._ _d._ _s._ _d._ 1894 (lowest on record) 22 10 22 10 23 6 1904 28 4 30 5 29 7 1905 29 8 31 2 30 8 1906 28 3 30 1 30 3 1907 30 7 32 4 33 10 1908 32 0 36 0 36 1 1909 36 11 39 2 40 3

Merely as a commercial speculation, then, it would be well worth our while to invest £1,000,000,000 in buying up the United Kingdom. The land is now probably at bed-rock price, and we should come in, as the slang phrase goes, on the ground floor. The really dear land, that of the towns, we could pass by. We want to get our industries and our people out of the towns and with control of area we could do it. The State, as landlord from John o'Groats to Land's End, could afford to dispense with the acquisition of the tiny areas upon which the majority of our people are now crowded. Land nationalization, viewed in this way, presents no insuperable financial difficulties. On the contrary, it would put us in possession, at an absurdly low price, of the opportunity to recreate our social structure and the means to dispense with all taxation in the time to come. Under wise management the national acreage could soon be made to yield a revenue from farms, allotments, market gardens, houses, factories, forests, etc., of something over three pounds per acre on the average, for it would house the greater part of our people and produce a larger part of our food by intensive cultivation. If we wisely use our resources, our 77,000,000 can be made to produce, under methods of intensive cultivation and co-operation already in practice, if not enough food to feed our population, certainly a larger proportion of our supplies than at present.

Also worth consideration is the important matter of afforestation. There are now but some 3,000,000 acres of woods and plantations in this country, and many of these are badly managed, for forestry is almost an unknown art in the United Kingdom. Landowners do not understand it; their agents do not understand it. Yet its possibilities are enormous and might be realized within twenty to thirty years of the simple financial operation which I have suggested. There need be no acre of the 77,000,000 not useful or not beautiful. Millions of acres of land now termed waste may be clothed in verdure to yield a steady and certain income and make us largely independent of imported timber. There is no greater authority on this subject than Dr Schlich, and he gives it as his opinion, confirmed by thorough investigation of British and foreign conditions,[53] that five or six million acres could be brought under wood, thus producing the bulk of the timber we require. Every acre afforested would require about £2 worth of labour. After planting, each acre would need only about five days' labour a year, but that means 30,000,000 days of work. The timber grown and cut, there would be the transport, lumbering, and allied industries calling for labour. Dr Schlich estimates that 500,000 men, or say 2,500,000 people, would find employment through the afforestation of say six million acres, and the estimate is based upon solid foundations.

It may be asked, why do the present owners of "waste" land miss such an opportunity? The answer has several parts. Landowners are for the most part (1) ignorant of the subject, (2) unprovided with capital, (3) unwilling to wait. A business which does not begin to yield income for some 15 years is not for the average private landowner. But the people, who have waited so long for the right to tread their own soil, can wait these fifteen years and other fifteen if need be.

Given the overlordship of area, the establishment of a permanent Land and Housing Commission, the nationalization of the means of transport, the establishment of well endowed schools of agriculture and forestry, and a generation of well-born children, what possibilities open out before us!

Is this conception too large for a race which talks of Empire? In the United States there is a private trust which was organized by a single individual with a capital of 1,000,000,000 dollars—a trust which owns territory, mines, railways, steamships and mills, and supports 1,000,000 people. Business transactions are growing greater, and must greater grow, for the world cannot afford to peddle with its resources. The future is with the men who realize that it is not more difficult to think in millions than in thousands. Within the last few years we have spent on a war with a small people £250,000,000 in the name of Empire. £250,000,000 is the price of one-fourth of the entire area of the Mother Country. It is high time for a little Imperial thinking in the home market.

[Footnote 52: These facts are summarized from the Census Reports.]

[Footnote 53: See his excellent "Forestry in the United Kingdom."]