The Sun.
London, England, 1870-06-06 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY MORNING, JUNE 6, 1870.

CO-OPERATIVE FARMS.

COMMISSIONER WELLS AND THE
:COM

Several interesting experiments in co-operative farming
have been tried of late years in various parts of England,
and are said to have been attended with great success.
Mr. Gurdon, of Assington Hall, in Suffolk, was the
bold innovator who first conceived this idea. The
system at Assington is wholly unconnected either
with the small farm system or the allotment sytem.
The members form an agricultural company, but the
land is not divided among them so as to give each one a
piece to himself, and in fact they have no
more to do with its cultivation than the share-
holders in a railway company have to do
with its traffic. The profits are divided among them every
year and are supposed to be paid partly in money
and partly in kind • but for all they have to do with the
actual tillage of the land they might as well live a hun-
dred miles off, or have their money in the Crystal Palace.
The "co-operative farm" is not intended to be a
means of turning the labourer into a farmer; nor
is it, except in point of money, any substitute for the
allotment. The members continue what they ever were—
ordinary day labourers, who work for the farmers of the
parish at the ordinary weekly wages ; as, indeed, they
may work under their own manager on the same terms if
they choose, and if out of employment they have a prefe-
rential claim upon him. But that is all. The only farmer
in the case is the paid manager, and he is little, if at all,
above the rank of an ordinary peasant. The manager
occupies what corresponds to the farmhouse upon the
farm, and he and his colleagues are supposed to meet in
council once a week, when questions of crop-
ping, manuring, and what not are, if necessary, put
to the vote ; but practically the whole working of the
machine is in the hands of the one man who stands in the
place of the ordinary tenant fanner. No member is
allowed to live more than three miles from the parish to
accept parish relief, or to retain his share, if convicted of
a felonious offence. All are obliged to belong to an ap-
proved benefit club, and the widow of a member may
retain her husband's share during her own lifetime. Assing-
ton is a pretty little retired village some distance from any
railway, lying in a thickly wooded but rather flat country
between Colchester and Sudbury. The late Mr. Gurdon
began his scheme as long ago as 1830, and at the
present time there are two farms on the property,
cultivated by two different companies, one of 133 acres and
21 members, the other of 213 acres and 36 members.
In each case the company was formed by means of a loan
from the landlord, supplementing the subscriptions of. the
members. In each case the loan was the same—namely,
£400: but in the first company the subscriptions were £3
a piece, and in the second £3 10s. Both the size of the
farms and number of members have gone on increasing till
they have reached the figures above given. The value of
each share in the larger farm is estimated by the sum
which the holder would receive if the whole stock were
sold off, and that is calculated at about £3O. The
shares on the smaller farm, as they yield a
larger income, are worth nearly £5O. When a
labourer buys a share he has to pay not less than
£5 down, and he surrenders his proportion of the profits
till the balance is discharged. The rent paid is about 30s.
an acre, which is something below the average rental of
the neighbourhood. These societies started on the whole,
then, 'under favourable circumstances. It is true that
the original capital in each case was rather below the
amount which is thought desirable for farming in general.
But still it seems to have been about £7 an acre. No
interest was charged for the money advanced. In the
next place, the expenditure was and is limited entirely to
the necessary expenses of cultivation. There is no establish-
ment to keep up. There is no "black-coated man," as the
local phrase runs, who has a station to maintain or
luxuries to purchase. The farmer or manager lives like a
peasant, and nothing goes in unproductive expenditure.
Under these circumstances one is naturally very curious
to know what the profits are, and how much each
member really receives per annum. But this is just the
point on which a good deal of secrecy is preserved.
Every member gets a ton of coals, a certain number
of sacks of potatoes, and one if not two fat pigs every
year. But how much money is divided between them
could not be discovered with exactr ess. The genes-al
opinion in the village among non-members was that
share in the old farm was worth in money and goods from
£2O to £3O a year.

MIT FEE ON MANUFACTURES.

SPECIAL DISPATCH TO THE " NEW YORK TIMES."

WASHINGTON, May 20,

The House Committee on Manufactures are in a state
of ferment to-night. They have learned, some of them at
least, that in their report submitted yesterday they are
literally " Hoist by their own Petard." The fact was
developed to-day that the report of the minority of the
Committee is chiefly a sharp and pungent letter from
Commissioner Wells, in which he overturns their argu-
ments and positions with great force and completeness.
What renders the thing worse for Mr. Morrell and his
followers is the fact that the minority report was ordered
to be printed with the majority. The scheme
of the Committee was to present a report reviewing
the report of the Special Commissioner of the Revenue,.
in which every one who had a grievance against the
Special Commissioner, by reason of his recommendation,
was to be allowed to make out the best case possible
against him. For this purpose all their resources were laid
under contribution. The wool manufactures, under the
lead of Mr John L. Hayes, of Boston, furnished
anew the pamphlets issued by them inthe early
part of last winter ; and the four cotton manufac-
tories of Boston have also embodied their recent letter
denying the accuracy of the statistics of the cotton manu-
facture presented by the Commissioner, and which he
subsequently answered and demolished. In addition to
this the report contains a summary of the editorials
of the New York Tribune on wool, the petitions
of pig iron makers, and various other statements
gotten up by different parties in respect to gunny
cloth, webbing lumber, and the price of wheat ; the
whole winding up with the conclusion that the Commis-
sioner was not only entirely wrong in all his statements
and calculations, but that he meant to represent and mis-
state the questions at issue, and had also entirely over-
stepped the legitimate province of his office. This report
has been in course of preparation for a long time, with
great secrecy, and it was intended to submit it to the
House, and have it printed and circulated without giving
the Commissioner or his friends the _opportunity to sub-
mit any rebutting evidence or explanation whatsoever.
But, as " the best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft
aglee," so this of Messrs. Morrell, Oakes, Ames, and Co.,
unexpectedly came to grief: A portion of the committee
not being willing that the Conmissioner should be con-
demned unheard, secured the privilege of furnishing him
with the points of attack, with a note requesting that he
would submit such answer to the same as he might think
proper. But the whole of the joke has not yet been told.
The innocent Mr Morrell, and the shrewd Mr Oakes Ames
did not conceive it possible that the minority of the Com-
mittee would attempt anything more than a feeble effort
in the way of a protest to what was clearly an
ex-pa rte statement, and so when the minority asked the
unanimous consent of the House that they might print
their statement in connection•with those of the majority,
the permission Was unhesitatingly granted, and the
two documents, if circulated at all, will have to be circu-
lated together. As one illustration of the way in which
the Commissioner has demolished his adversaries, the case
of the article of webbing may be referred to—and this ar-
ticle seems to have been a sort of pet thing with the ma-
jority of the committee, for they enlarge upon it to the
extent of several pages, and endeavour to shoW that the
Commissioner, who talked of the reduction of duty on the
essential raw materials of our great manufactures, in
reality through ignorance or carelessness, proposed to
increase the duty on this particular article to
the extent of several hundred per cent. The Com-
missioner has demolished their whole fabric by simply
going to the New York Custom-house, and taking a copy
of the first invoice of webbing imported during the present
month. This he presents entire, and leaves every one to
see for himself that the duties recommended by him are
simply a practical conversion of the present ad valorem
into specific rates, and are nothing more ; a practical argu-
ment from which there can be no escape. So, also, in re-
gard to pig-iron, cotton, wool, lumber, comparative prices
of agricultural product, and other matters, the Commis-
sioner brings such a vast amount of additional information
as renders his letter to the minority of the Committee on
Manufactures second only in importance to the report
presented by him at the commencement of the session.
The report of the minority is strongly in •favour of the
Commissioner, but points out that the question really at
issue is not whether Mr. Wells understood the cost of
freight or manufacture, but whether a burdensome system
of taxation shall be maintained upon the whole country
for the benefit of a few special interests. The business of
the country is, they point out, extremely depressed, and
the only marvel is that the energy and resources of the
country have enabled its commerce to bear up against
such an oppressive burden.

THE INDUSTRIAL CLASSES IN FOREIGN
COUNTRIES.

The reports to which we have hitherto called attention
relate to the condition of the working-classes on the Con-
tinent of Europe. There remains to be noticed the Report
on the condition of similar classes in America. The sub-
ject is highly interesting, for, if there is any country which
deserves to be called the paradise of the working man, it
is the United States of America. Here. as Mr. Ford's
report puts it, the labouring classes maybe said to embrace
the entire nation. " Every man works for a
living, follows a profession, or is engaed either
in mercantile or industrial pursuits." No profession
and no calling is a bar to political promotion
or social elevation. The tailor or bookbinder of to-day
may aspire to Presidential honours, not exactly, as Mr.
Ford puts it, "to-morrow," but within a defined and not
remote time. The son of the President offends no social
prejudices by taking a farm or a dry goods' store. All this

is so much in harmony with the opinions and sympathies
of our working-men that it is no wonder that they should
wish to Americanise their own country. Never, indeed,
in any one country were all the conditions favourable to
their prosperity so signally combined as they are in
America. An immense and unpeopled area, a climate for
the most part salubrious, a soil for the most part fertile,
an ample seaboard indented with capacious harbours, an
exuberance of metallic wealth—all these advantages con-
curto attract and to employ a continuous influx of labouring
immigrants. Line after line of railroad is constructed,
city after city is reared, factory after factory is set agoing.
Every kind of work that can stimulate industry and re-
ward ingenuity is persistently and continually developed.
New works bring new wealth, new wealth craves new
luxuries. New luxuries set new trades in operation.
The circle of demand and supply goes round, and with it
grow the importance and employment of the working
classes. There is rarely a long stagnation of work. There
ought never to be an utter want of money. Wages are
high enough in the generality of towns to admit of saving
quite enough to meet such bad seasons as do occasionally
occur. All these circumstances are favourable to the
operative, but they are more favourable to the opera-
tive of foreign . than of American extraction.
California is the seventh heaven of the working-man's
paradise, i.e. if the enjoyments of a paradise may be
measured by money payments. Here, bricklayers get
from 18s. to £l4s. a day ; blacksmith's helpers, Bs. to 10s.
a day ; brush and broom mj,kers, " £l5 a month and
found ;" " coachmen trom £7 to £lO a month and
found ;" carriage builders, 14s. to 1.65. a day ; farm
labourers, " £6 a month and found in winter, £8 a month
and found in summer ;" gasfitters, 14s. to 18s. a day ; gar-
deners, ".Ir6 to £8 a month and found ;" miners, " Se. to
14s. a day and found ;" quarrymen, 10s. a day ; sawyers,
" £8 to £2O a month and found)" waiters, "£4 to £8 a

month and found." Fortunately for the European cm-
' ployer of labour, California is a very long way off, and it
' requires far more money to get there than the improvident
habits of our artisans allow them to save. Those
who aspire to settle there must make up their minds to go
' through a long apprenticeship in Canada or the Eastern
States before they have earned sufficient to carry them to
the coast of the Pacific. Mr. Ford thinks that the golden
days of the Californian labourer have passed away. But
we question the correctness of his judgment. He hardly
seems to make the requisite allowance for the inevitable
consequences of the railroad, which now unites the
Atlantic and Pacific seaboards. It is impossible that the
vast area traversed by this line should long remain sterile
and unpopulated, or that cities should not grow around
the metallic wealth of Neveda and California, or the
agricultural wealth of the plains watered by the Arkansas
River. Amore formidable obstruction perhaps to,English,
immigration is the increasing immigration of Chinese, a
people whose skill, industry, and perseverance make them
invaluable in the development of large but sparsely
populated countries. Were there a much easier access
than there is ever likely to be for English and
German immigrants, the popular prejudice against the
Chinese labourers would probably assume the form of a
harsh and prohibitive policy against their introduction.
But as the competition lies between them and the Irish,
the popular sentiment allows its hatred of yellow-skins to
be merged in its detestation of Irish factions and rowdyism.
After a strike of white shoemakers at San Francisco; the
people were in despair at how to get boots and shoes. At
last Chinamen were introduced at wages of 16s. a day.
" So successful was this importation that the managers
report they will soon require as many 'white men for over-
seers as were previously required as working hands."
Certainly, if the whole tribe of Irish unskilled labourers
and waiters were swept away, not a single American
capitalist who was not a railway contractor or a manipu-
lator of New York elections would regret it. But, much
as all American genslemen would rejoice at
this catastrophe, their joy would be as nothing
compared to that of the American ladies if
they could but find themselves emancipated from
the tyranny of their Irish cooks and chambermaids.
Mr. Ford's Report confirms all that we have been told or
have read of the dirt, slovenliness, ignorance, and inso-
lence of a class of people who combine the rudeness of a
savage with the wants and exactions of the most civilized
life. On the whole, this report shows cause for relaxing
some of our IVlalthusian strictness. Our English working-
folk may marry and multiply, provided only that they
lay by sufficient to enable them to emigrate to new fields
of labour. Between the Pacific States of America and our
' own colonies of Canada and Australia there is ample room
and employment for thousands of English men and women
who do no work in England. But they must save here in
order to go thither, and many of them must consent to
earn in Cana,darthe• means of transit to California. It
will never •do for benevolent societies to come to their
rescue by winking at their improvidence when they are '
well paid, and sending them out of the country at other
'people's expense as soon as work falls slack and wages go I
aotrin.—s4t4renV BCVtiVv.