The Sun.
London, England, 1844-11-05 00:00:00

assassea
SPIRIT bf the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
sFROH THE EVENT2;G PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
GLOBE.—We find the following sentences in the
.?herald of this morning :—" Whigs and Tories are of
accord that the allotment system at least deserves a
fair trial. The Chronicle only doubts whether the
landlords' intentions are sincere ; the Globe admits
that allotments, or some better plan, ought to be im-
mediately brought into general use. The only re-
maining dissentients are the League, the Times, and
my Lord Radnor. And as we believe that none of
these parties possess much influence among the
landed proprietors, we trust that we may expect the
experiment to be fairly and extensively tried."
We cannot but smile at the good fellowship with
the landed proprietors into which the Ministerial organ
brings us with our respected Contemporary the
Chronicle; and the variance with them at which it
places the Times, which, at the last general election,
thundered against our party expressly in behalf of
the agricultural interest. These are the " revenges"
which the whirligig of time brings about. But,
omitting these, it appears to us that the allotment
question lies in a nutshell; and that the benefit of its
discerning application is not, at this day, mere
matter for experiment. The rationale of the allot-
ment system—so far as it does not profess to
bring about a revolution in property—is simply
that of a sort of agricultural truck system. It
is part payment of the wages of farm-labour
in commodities—or the use of the instrument
(land), by aid of which commodities are produced.
We call this the rationale of allotments. We do not
mean to say that this is the shape they have always
taken. But we say it expresses the principle on
which they are to he defended, as a general benefit to
labourers. Looking at allotments from this point
of view at once strips them of the prestige,
whether of exaggerated anticipations or exag-
gerated alarms. Lanurers' allotments, of them-
selves, would effect no sweeping change in the
present rural economy. They would not (generally)
affect the object, which we think highly desirable, of
throwing smaller parcels of land into the market,
for ownership or occupation, than our present
propped-up system does. They would not, of them-
selves, replace the agricultural interest on its old na-
tural level. Rut the agricultural interest, willy-nilly,
is rapidly subsiding to that level. The failure and re-
laxation of monopoly—colonial and foreign competi-
tion—are doing that business for it. And it seems
to us that the allotment system may ease the pre-
sent epoch of transition. And we do not wish
to disguise our hopes that while labourers' allot-
ments would give something of more stabi-
lity to the lowly footing of labourers on the lands
they till—the extension of the system would also af-
ford opportunities to energetic members of the class
to rise into a more independent yeomanry. Money
has reigned long and exclusively enough in all landed
calculations. We want restoration of the breed of
men. The high pressure system has been tried and
found wanting. The Herald observes—” Go through
Lincolnshire ; observe how general the tenure of land
by the labourer in that county is; and you will find
also that it affords them that kind of independence
which upholds wages, which in that county are com-
monly 12s. per week." We ourselves cited an instance
the other day from the Journal of the Agricultural
Society, of small beginnings in the Occupation
of land leading to circumstances Gf independ-
ence. There are, no doubt, other things
besides allotments wanted to place land on the
beA footing, as the most important instrument of
production of the prime necessaries of life. The
undisturbed ownership of land is doubtless mainly
essential to all improvement. But all the incidents
and conditions of that ownership—all the regulations
of its transmission, or succession, are within the
competence of the Legislature. Property has its
duties, as well as its rights ; and the State has the
right to enforce its duties—so far as those duties
admit of enforcement by general measures. A pro
prietary class should never be allowed to lose sight
of these axioms. If a garden to every cottage is
universally conducive to the labourer's elevation, the
State would have an unquestionable right to enact
that every cottage shoul I have a garden. If
game-laws, or any other laws, limit production in a
degree nationally injurious, the State has an unques-
tionable right to devote game—or whatever else—to
destruction. Otherwise, the nation exists for the sake
of-property—not property for the sake of the nation.
The nation might be doomed to decay in the
sinews of its strength at the will of proprietors—
whereas all reasoners of any authority are agreed that
proprietors are amenable to the sense of the nation for
every general effect the exercise of their rights may
have. That the benefit of such general effects greatly
outweighs their evil, is the sole broad and sufficient
basis for upholding the right ofproperty. But wherever
the evil outweighs the benefit,;the State, which sanctions,
has a right to modify it. Such interference only
becomes tyranny where it is exercised partially, or
,on other than general grounds. We have said thus
much to show that no ulterior resulting change in
the distribution of landed property would lead us to
condemn allotments, merely as leading to it ; unless
it could be shown that such ultimate change would
be nationally injurious. Now we believe that con-
siderable changes might take place in the present
distribution without being injurious, but much the
contrary. Without denying the advantages of large
farms, we see limits to these advantages. Those limits
are found in the moneyed means of the tenants to
keep their holdings in high condition. It is evident
that when those means fail, large occupations become
impracticable. It appears to us no less evident that
the failure to support all the year round the la-
bourers wanted on the land, must be viewed as
a failure of those moneyed means and as having
produced a state of things which Mr. Laing
notes as existing on the, Continent. " Agricultural
improvement," observes that writer, " consists mainly
in the judicious economy of labour. But on the Con •
tinent there is no outlet for surplus labour, or for a
superfluous agricultural population, in munUfacturing
districts or colonies, The land must support the
people either as labourers or paupers, so that large
farms, with few hands comparatively living upon the
produce, are impracticable abroad, as a general
arrangement of the agricultural land." Now, is not
this precisely the state of things which is taking
place here, so far as we are told of a surplus popula-
tion in rural districts? We require to distinguish in
talking of that surplus. It may be a surplus over
the numbers wanted for the highest culture of the
soil. Or it may be a surplus over the means of
the farmers to maintain them throughont the year
It is this latter surplus to which allotments alone are
applicable—so far as those allotments are meant as
merely supplementary to the wages of farm labourers.
It is only the labourer generally employed who can
well be expected to pay rent for allotments. It la
only to the number of labourers, therefore, generally
wanted on the land that the allotment system,
at present proposed, can well be considered ap-
plicable. If there is a surplus over this
number (as in some parts it would seem there
is), other means must be taken to relieve it, in-
dependent of allotments conceded to labourers.
And these allotments, as we began by stating, may
be simply considered CS part payment in kind for la-
bour—or permission to pay itself in kind. For they
result simply from the apparent inability of landed
employers to pay their labourers sufficient wages in
money throughout the year. This is the plain state
of the case—continually recurring to observation. It
blazed forth in the fires of 1830, and has smouldered
or burned on since. The New Poor-law did not
create, though it has made it more manifest and fla-
grant. For it has docked off (so far as enforced) the
money aids to the money deficit of the farmers. All
parties interested in the land must put their shoulder
to the wheel to get over this rut. And certainly the
state should aid them, so far as relief from fiscal
burthens can be given. Certainly the State should aid
them, so far as it can open new outlets or fields
for labour. We have been too pre-occupied by these
considerations to take up the Examiner's renewed
challenge on the subject.sif "Labourers' Prizes" and
our (so called) " defence " of them. We pay our
Contemporary the compliment to believe that it is
merely as bearing on public interests that he notices
our supposed heresy. And it is in continuing our
discussion of those interests and the matter of La-
bourers' Prizes, as well as Allotments, in due con-
nexion with them—that we shall find opportunity to
answer, so far as needful, the challenge to ourselves.
STANDARD.—The Morning Chronicle this day
announces the retirement from the bench of the
Common Pleas, of Mr. Justice Erskine. The
universally regretted had health of the excellent
judge is the cause of his retirement, about which
there is, we believe, no doubt. Our morning.
Contemporary, however, follows up its announce-
ment by an article which we think it must be
extremely difficult to defend. Five or six distin-
guished members of the bar are named as can-
didates for the vacant seat, without ony one of them,
as we are firmly persuaded, ever having been guilty of
the indelicacy of preferring a claim ; and Sir R. Peel is
lectured as to the choice he ought to make among the
five or six presumed candidates. This is surely injustice
to the bar, and injustice to the individuals named—inj us -
tice to the bar in assuming that the gentlemen named
are the only members of the profession qualified for the
judicial office—an assumption wholly contrary to the
truth. Were we disposed to imitate an example so
invidious, we could name a dozen gentlemen as well
qualified to fill seats on the bench with'
honour to themselves and aaclvanit3age to the coun-
try as any those named
Contempo-
rary. Some of those un-named
our
gaernetlemen are well known to the public,
some
experience tells that among the clas- itll°lt yet
best judges may be, and frequently are
We have heard that when the late Lord found.
terden, a great lawyer and an excellent judge,
was called to change his stuff gown for the ,
judicial robe, the universal question was, wha '
is this Mr. Abbott? And we remember that