RURAL ENGLAND.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 11484, 17 January 1903, Page 7

RURAL ENGLAND.

!snig»e who know Mr Rider Haggard merely ; m Urn author of stories of imagination and [Adventure in South Africa, have no idea -' ] of the charm of hja, writings on such an f Apparently dull subject as English f&rav , ffng. Ye* he Jβ to-day probably the only . EogHeh qmq of letters who can write authoritatively and attractively of this gnat industry. His book, " The Farmers' Yew," was » revelation of this gift. The I tone of the book was certainly pessimistic, tout this is apparently inevitable, with any ' truthful picture of the English farmer's • lot and prospects, and it is & strong ' characteristic of Mr Haggard's latest work, ''Rural England." which is the result of a prolonged tour he made through, England in 1901, investigating the agricultural industry and the position of the agricultural labourer. He personally investigated twenty-seven counties. It must have become • depressing task. Generally speaking, he found everywhere the tenant fanner jwt "hanging on" to the edge of tha precipioe of ruin, while the landlord is in much the same precarious position. Agriculture to becoming a lost art in some part* ol tb* country, which Mr Haggard found Wen already "aimott ac lonesome as the veldt of Africa." The farm labourer has already disappeared from some districts, and is disappearing from others, and the •lama and by-etreebe of the cities are crowded with the men and women who have fled froni the country, upon which depression seems to nave cast its shadow. The sew men who have bought the estates of eld county families, victims of low price's and foreign competition, are, in many cases, content to use them for sporting purposes. They do not trouble about fawning fox profit, and so are unconcerned at the rural exodus, one of tine most striking and most threatening features of modern English life. The I decay of the farm labourer, as such, goes , on unchecked. He in, as Mr Haggard observes, at the bottom of the social scale in the country. Aβ a class lie is losing . pride in himself, and the young men, witaI out confidence in the future, are unskilled ) in the arts of husbandry in which their ■ ' fathers were past masters. For a plough- ; ing competition for which the Norfolk f ' County Council offered £9 in prizes, one [ • ploughman, Mr Rider Haggard's, entered out of a population of and not a single lad competed in the class for youths, for which a fkrize of £3 was offered. ! Air Haggard apparently thinks that it farmers could pay their labourers doubk their present wages the exodus might be •topped, and the tide would flow back to the country, but this is hardly likely to be. considered seriously by farmers who can •yen now barely make ends meet. Other people suggested to Mr Haggard that if in course of time town wages had to be reduced, the rural districts might be repopulated, but, as one reviewer remarked, if the revival of agriculture can only be brought about by the decline of trade and manufactures, it would bardly be an un- , mixed benefit. It is, of course, impossible in the limits •i our disposal to do more than just refer [ to the conditions of modern British farm- , - ing or the measures advocated by Mr Rider **ggard for its improvement. He has *Wl faith in agricultural technical edueaj 'tien as a factor in restoring prosperity to Urn stricken industry, and most farmers *>ll agree with his remark that " the lad "who is expected to deal with the land : . end with animals ought to become"practi"ofclly acquainted with tJbem before he is ! _ **welve years old; otherwise, in the great ■'- ttajority of cases, 'he will dislike the one "•ad fear the other." He admita that protection would check the foreign competition which is assisting to ruin the i British farmer, but at the same time he does not believe in it, holding that it is a I. chimera and an impossibility. He advot'c tales small holdings where the soil is good i|| >ad markets are handy, and the farming ft •! the rest of the land on a huge scale by \r capitalists. He appeals for the re- '*/,\ oousing of the rural labourer, which is inI .} &**& one of the crying needs of English W,> country life, the institution by Government «y| blip of 00-openrtive credit baaka «ad of oo-

operative butter factories, the adjustment of taxation on real estate, th* strengthening of the powers and position of the Board of Agriculture, and the institution of an agricultural post-, similar to the parcel post, by which the fanner could send expeditiously at the lowest possible rates packages of produce up to lOOlbs in weight. Thin he regards as the "greatest and most farreaching " of the remedies lie propose*", though its workableness has met with some severe criticism. Filled with a sense ol the gravity of the situation Mr Rider Haggard closes with an expression of his conviction that "if England is to fall from " her present high position," the principal cause " will be our national neglect to main- " tain the population on the land," and that her greatest safeguard " lies in the re- " creation of a yeoman claps, rooted in the " soil and supported by the soil." His whole book constitutes an appeal to the Government to face this great question and strain every nerve to restore prosperity to the laud.