COUNTY CONSTITUENTS.
[TO THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—I have read with much interest your article on this sub- ject, in which you state that men of the physique and vigour of Sir Richard Temple have declared the effort of fighting a county division too great to be repeated. I am the Liberal candidate who has been debarred on this account from the honour of fighting Sir R. Temple, and I am of opinion that the rural voters are perfectly reasonable in desiring to hear and see the man who is asking for their votes, and that the exertion on his part is well bestowed.
The correspondence on village life in the Daily News is once more revealing to the public some of the grievous circum- stances which have blighted and embittered the existence of the farm labourer. The stirring life outside our counties has gradually drawn away, happily, only a portion of the liveliest and most vigorous of the people in our country parishes. Marge numbers are still left full of life and vigour, if only an outlet for their energies can be discovered. The Liberal Party has been the means of giving these men a vote and the pro- tection of the ballot, and they are rightly determined to use these to redress some of the grievances under which their class has for centuries suffered. Poverty prevents their taking in a newspaper, and they have been so used to the language of patronage or command, that they naturally call for and flock around a speaker who is making a study of the hard conditions of their lives, and who argues to them that legislative changes can be brought about by their votes which may beneficially transform the face of rural England.
This is no idle dream, as can be abundantly shown in many parts of the Evesham Division, where the labourer has had a chance of farming apiece of hind on his own account. The crops he raises are far in excess of the farmers' average. Cavillers who object that small farming at present prices cannot be made to pay should recollect that the labourer's household provides a market at home for at least £25 worth of produce per year in the shape of bread, potatoes, and bacon. The articles produced on the labourer's own ground cost him too little for the expenditure to be regarded as a serious item of outlay, and, as you say, the labourer rightly prefers his wages and the produce of an allotment of which he is the undisputed master, to perquisites and privileges which yield him no solid cash that can be laid by, and of which the whim of his employer may deprive him at any time.
For a long while to come the problems of English rural life will rightly absorb the warmest interest of our country popu- lation. County constituents of the future will, I believe, be able to observe an even greater progress in all that makes life worth living, than has been hitherto accomplished by any section of the industrial classes of our country, and T, for one, am only too happy to spend the time and labour which is necessary to bring these considerations home to the men whose lives and whose children's future will be most affected
Hon. Sec. Allotments and Small Holdings Association. Longbridge, Worcestershire, September 22nd.
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