Kitabı oku: «Essays in Liberalism», sayfa 17

Independence

I need not urge the importance in our villages of real independence of life. It was the absence of independence combined with long working hours and little occupation for the hours of leisure, which, more than low wages, caused the pre-war exodus from the country. Should the prospects of industry improve, but agriculture remain depressed, there will be another exodus from the country-side of the best of the young men who have come back to it after the war. It is of first-class importance, both from the national and from the agricultural point of view, that they should stay, for there was a real danger before the war that agriculture might become a residual industry, carried on mainly by them, too lethargic in mind and body to do anything else.

In a preface which he wrote to Volume I of the Land Report, as chairman of Lloyd George’s Land Inquiry Committee (it seems a long time ago now that Lloyd George was a keen land reformer), my father sketched out the idea of setting up commissions to report parish by parish in each county, in the same way that commissions have reported on the parochial charities. They would record how the land was distributed, whether the influence of the landowners told for freedom or against it, whether there was a chance for the labourer to get on to the land and to mount the ladder. Whether there was an efficient village institute, whether there were enough allotments conveniently situated, whether the cottagers were allowed to keep pigs and poultry, and what the health and housing were like.

It is a good idea, and should be borne in mind. I confess I do not know enough to know whether it is now as desirable as it seemed to be before the war. I would fain hope not, but I am not sure. I believe that there is a good deal more real independent life in the villages now than there was ten years ago. There are, I think, now fewer villages like some in North Yorkshire before the war, in which the only chance for a Liberal candidate to have a meeting was to have it in the open-air, after dark on a night with no moon, and even then he needed a big voice—for his immediate audience was apt to be two dogs and a pig. Now, it seems to me that people like having political meetings going on, but do not bother to listen to any of them.

As to the present, there has been lately, within my knowledge, a great building of village institutes. There has been a tremendous development of football. Village industries, under the wise encouragement of the Development Commission, are reviving. Motor buses make access to town amusements much easier, and cinemas come out into the village. There is revived interest and very keen competition in the allotment and cottage garden shows. Thus it is, at any rate, down our way—but no one can know more than his own bit of country. On these and similar matters we ought to think and watch and meet together to report and discuss. We need more Maurice Hewletts and Mrs. Sturge Grettons to tell us how things really are, for nothing is so difficult to visualise as what is going on slowly in one’s own parish.

Co-operation

I come lastly to co-operation. You will think me biased when I speak of its possibilities. I am. I have been for eighteen years on the governing body of the Agricultural Organisation Society, and happen now to be its chairman, and am therefore closely in touch with the work of organising co-operative effort. One sees fairly clearly how difficult it is to make any class of English agriculturists combine for any mutual purpose, how worth while it is, and what almost unexpected opportunities of useful work still exist. Thanks largely to untiring work by Sir Leslie Scott—who gave up the chairmanship of the society on his recent appointment as Solicitor-General—the country is now fairly covered by societies for purchasing requirements co-operatively—principally fertilisers, feeding-stuffs, and seeds. There are also affiliated to the movement I have mentioned, many useful co-operative auction marts, slaughter-house societies, bacon factories, wool societies, egg and poultry societies, and fruit and garden produce societies (but not nearly enough), besides a thousand or so societies of allotment holders which, thanks largely to our friend, George Nicholls, set all the others an example in keenness and loyalty to their parent body.

The ideal is that where a society exists the main raw materials of the industry shall be bought wholesale instead of retail, and the main products of the industry sold retail instead of wholesale; that thereby middlemen’s and other profits shall be reduced to a reasonable figure, and that the consumer shall get the most efficient possible service with regard to his supplies. It is also the ideal that farmers and others shall learn more comradeship and brotherhood; that the big and small men alike shall become one community bound together for many common purposes, and that thus the cultivators of the soil shall lose that isolation and selfishness which is a reproach against them. The ideal is, however, not always realised. The farmer likes to have a co-operative society to keep down other people’s prices, but, having helped to form a society, he does not see why he should be loyal to it if a trader offers him anything a shilling a ton cheaper. A good committee is formed, but the members think they hold their offices mainly in order to get first cut for themselves at some good bargain the society has made, and they start with the delusion that they are good men of business. Things, therefore, get into the hands of the manager, and it is astonishing how much more quickly a bad manager can lose money than a good one can make it. And if in these and other ways it is uphill work with farmers’ societies, the work is still more uphill with small-holders. It is the breath of their nostrils to bargain individually, and if a society is started they will only send their stuff to be sold when they and every one else have a glut, ungraded and badly packed—and then they grumble at getting a low price.

But all co-operative work is abundantly worth while. And the field of co-operation is not limited to the purchase of supplies or the sale of produce. It ought to cover the use of tractors and threshing sets and the installation and distribution of power. And if agriculture gets a chance of settling down to a moderate amount of stability and prosperity, it would not be beyond the bounds of hope that part, at any rate, of the profits of co-operative enterprise should be used to develop the amenities of the common life of the community—to provide prizes for the sports and the flower show—the capital to start an industry for the winter evenings, and even seats for the old people round the village green.

Times are not propitious for increasing the productivity of our land, excepting by the slow processes of education—which work particularly slowly in agriculture. Nor are they immediately propitious for raising the workers’ standard of life, though we should never leave go of this as an essential. But many of us can, if we will, help a good man to start on the land, or help a man who has made good on the land to do better. Many of us can help to develop real independence of life in the villages and, through co-operation, those kindly virtues of friendliness and helpfulness to others and willingness to work for common ends which are sometimes not so common as they might be. And those who can do any of these things should, without waiting for legislation—for the legislator is a bruised reed.