SOCIAL HINTS FROM OTHER LANDS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8510, 15 August 1907, Page 3

SOCIAL HINTS FROM OTHER LANDS.

FRENCH TILLERS LEAVING THE _SOIL. Lord Lansdowne, speaking in the House of Lords, May 30th, said:—"l hope your lordships may have an opportunity of reading a most interesting book which has lately been written by a very distinguished ; French statesman —M. Meline —on the subject of the return to the land. It is a very remarkable picture of the agricultural situation in France, Another writer —Mr Jesse Collings—whose book is a classic on this subject, says: —'Since the time of the Revolution the career of the French tillers of the soil has been one of increasing comfort and prosperity.' In spite of this, what does M. Meline tell us? He says the French tiller is leaving the soil. 'Our agricultural population/ continues M. Meline, 'has been decreasing steadily. . . . The country has been abandoned. This has not been done without reason, and the reason still exists. The agricultural labourer deserted the soil because it imposed on him toojnuch work and too many privations. ' I commend tu M. Meline's conclusions. He says:— 'The return to the land will not be brought about by violent and empirical measures, but scientifically and by men of goodwill working in concord and unity.' I believe in that work the landowners of this country are willing to bear their part, and I believe it may be a very useful part if noble lords opposite and their friends will be good enough to regard them as allies rather than as a common enemy, and against whom they are to encourage their supporters to undertake what is sometimes spoken of as a crusade." ANOTHER FRENCH VIEW. "In travelling from Dover to London," said M. Charles Deloncle, the Deputy for the Seine Department in the Chamber of Deputies, "I was struck with the vast extent of land left uncultivated, or merely reserved for pasture. To a Frenchman such a , state of things appears most extraordinary. . . . Allotments and small holdings are the foundations upon which French rural prosperity is . built. Our small holders represent fejarly 98 per .of all the landowners from Normandy to Provence. I don't see why you should not es- ! tablish your agricultural system on .the lines that we have thoroughly tested and found so successful. . . . The wonder is that, with the sense ■of the practical for which the English are popularly known all over the world, they should have remained so long before applying a remedial measure of some kind." M. Deloncle is one of the two hundred French horticulturists who have been on a visit to to England at the invitation of the International Brotherhood All'ance. -A LESSON FROM GERMANY. *'The chief thing we have to learn from Germany," said Miss Julie Sutter to a writer in the Christian World, "is civic enterprise. In Germany there are civic labour bureaux •everywhere which give the workman the fullest information that will :help him to get employment. Most towns have also what is called a Public Information Bureau, where a poor man can get free information on such matters as houses, rents, .and so on; also legal advice. There :is compulsory national insurance, a most valuable thing in many ways, ■as I have shown fully in 'Britain's Hope.' German education, too, both •elementary, higher, and technical, is far beyond anything you have here. People tell me when I talk about i;hese matters, 'These are your Ger-; man ways.' Yes, but Ido not advocate these things because they are ■German. I advocate them because •of their results! Do them in your «wn British way —only do them." "Let us hope Mr John Burns will "read and profit by Miss Sutter's 'Open Letter,' which "ought to be in the hands of every Minister, and to be studied in the Social Service Union reading circles that are being started about the country," adds the writer. SMALL HOLDINGS IN DENMARK.In regard to the example of Denmark as a reason for pressing on this country the creation of small holdings, Mr Granville E. Lloyd Baker, writing to The Times from Hardwicke„Court, Gloucester, says:—"A great part of the country (Denmark) is occupied by very large farms, where there are 80, 160, or even 400 •cows; and it is on these farms that the cattle are best looked after and the cultivation most advanced. The small farms play a useful but subsidiin training and supplying labourers, for the small farmer can Hardly make a living without working occasionally for a larger farmer, and allowing his family to do so. . . As to the large proportion who are retained on the land, ic must be remembered that there is far less counter-attraction than in England. Denmark has scarce-y any waterpower, and has no coal. The only manufactures, therefore, are butter an bacon. . . . "As labour is much cheaper than in England, a small profit satisfies the Danish peasant; and the same cause makes it possible to practise what Mr Churchill describes as intensive cultivation; though this only consists in ploughing up land that is not well suited either by its nature or by the climate for permanent pasture. If English manufactures failed, and wages fell to the level of those of Denmark, the system that answers Denmark might answer here; but we may hope that such, a calamity is faxdistant. As to co-operation, we might probably learn a good deal from that country; but, as -it is the resort of the large farms as well as the small, it might be utilised without disturbing our pre - sent holdings."