THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, JULY 13, 1909. THE PASSING OF THE BRITISH AGRICULTURIST.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9541, 13 July 1909, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, JULY 13, 1909. THE PASSING OF THE BRITISH AGRICULTURIST.

One of the causes, apparently, why British agricultural land is steadily falling in value, to the despair of the large landowners, is that the prospects which other countries, like Canada, the United States, Australia, or Argentine, offer to the healthy, industrious, and competent agricultural worker are far superior to those which Britain herself can hold out to her own sons. In 1880 the agricultural and pastoral lands of England were, assessed for income t«x purposes at an annual value of £67.913,000. By 1906 the value had fallen to £53,198,000. House property meanwhile was advancing in value by leaps and bounds. In 1862 the houses of England were assessed at £61,924,000, and in ISO 6 the amount of the assessment was £205,486,000. These figures tell their own tale very clearly—the tale cf the ever increasing emigration of the rural dwellers to the towns or else to other countries far from Britain. Seeing this continual movement depicted so distinctly in the agricultural statistics, and reading the lamentations of the landowning class over their changed fortunes, it is borne in upon the observer that the stream of British agricultural emigration, which now does so much to fertilise distant regions of the earth, cannot go on indefinitely. It must dry up in time, and it may be conjectured from sundry unmistakable indications that the period i 3 not far distant when the agricultural districts of England will cease to produce agricultural workers in sufficient numbers to allow of a surplus for export. It is, of course, quite natural that the old-fashioned British aristocratic landowner should bitterly deplore the discontent of the agricultural labouring class with its surroundings, and should lay the blame on the board-school education, which no longer inculcates reverence for the squire and parson; on the cheap press, which spreads specious tales of prcsperity in other lands; and on all the otbar influences that create a feeling of unrest in the mind of the labourer. Lord Cranworth, writing a lamentation in the "National Review" on the decay of the English village, presents a most depressing picture of the conditions in the average Eaat England village at the present day. On the village green where j "a boli peasantry, tsc country's

pride," once disported itself, there are now to be seen, according to this authority, only a few stunted youths smoking cigarettes. "Between such and the toil-worn veterans of 60 or 70 years, there remains in the whole village hardly an able-bodied man." The squire has sold his hall to "some rich shopkeeper," and has departed to lead a life of squalid ease elsewhere; the hobbledehoys who remain show no respect for the parson; and all the sturdy toilers of bygone days, who tugged deferentially at their j forelocks when landowner or churchI man passed by, have departed, apparently, for ever. Lord Cranworth is very sad about it; but it is useless to blame the board schools, which neglect the subject of religious instruction, or the cheap press—he calls it, in his indignation, the "yellow press"—which entices away the labourer by incredible tales of astounding prosperity in far-off countries. Probably the real reason for the plen* iful lack of hardy farmworkers on the village green on Sundavs is that the land-owning class has hitherto been able to oppose an impenetrable barrier to every effort made by Liberalism in the direction of releasing land from the tenacious ifgrip of the feudal aristocracy. The maintenance of the existing system of land tenures has always been a cardinal principle of the order to which Lord Cranworth belongs, and as long as that system is preserved intact it is next to impossible for an agricultural labourer ever to own a foot of land in England. It is true that a Small Holdings Act has been passed, which even the territorial aristocrat grudgingly admits has been successful,,in districts where intensive agriculture, market gardening, or fruit growing is possible, But the tenant farmer is still 'battling against his hard lot all over Great Britain; and the spread of education, and of the cheap press, which Lord Crariwortfi so much detests, merely serves to inform him that there are other countries where of land tenure does not date back to the JWiddle Ages, and wheiv industry and aptitude for agriculture may find their legitimate reward. Britain's system of land tenure is a matter for Britain herpelf to decide. It is not ior any extraneous observer to put forward suggestion upon such a subject. But at least it may be pointed out that the conditions' of agricultural life in England to-day are such as to provide an incentive to men of the sturdy agricultural breed to emigrate to other countries where those conditions do not prevail. The sturdy British farm worker is still a tangible actuality; but he is diminishing in numbers and the indications are that he may be r.cn-existenf—at any rate for export.