THE FARMERS AND THE LIBERALS.
IT is becoming very clear that the old fallacy, so triumphant hitherto at county elections, that the interests of land- lords and farmers are identical, and that the farmers are best represented in Parliament by their landlords, is at last pretty well worn out. The proceedings and addresses of the Farmers' Alliance, and the appearance of tenant-farmer candidates for various counties (who would have been more numerous, if the Dissolution had been put off till the autumn), alike give proof of this. The wonder is that the Farmers have remained under such a delusion so long. That there are points upon which legislation which profits the landowners profits also their tenants is. of course, plain enough, and upon .these points the landlords in Parliament have not shown them- selves remiss. But how farmers could have been brought to believe that upon the vital questions of compensa- tion for unexhausted improvements, of the law of distress, of game and game preservation, of the apportionment of rates between landlords and tenants, and of giving a voice to farmers
in the expenditure of rates by Comity Boards, the legislation likely to be promoted by landlords could ever be really favourable to the interests of tenants, is a puzzle hard indeed to solve. However, six years of absolute landlord ascendancy, in both Houses of Parliament, have at last brought most in- telligent farmers to the conclusion that the landlords they have sent to represent them have proved to be but as wolves set to guard the sheep.
It would be unwise to over-estimate the gain (though, no doubt, there will be some considerable gain) to the Liberal cause at the present election, from this change of feeling amongst the Farmers. Between the Liberals and the farmers there has hitherto been but little sympathy, and sympathy takes time to grow. Several of the tenant-farmer candidates now coming forward, as well as a large proportion of the promoters and members of the Farmers' Alliance, are, in general politics, staunch Conservatives. The Liberals, on their side, have hitherto taken much too little account of the farmers, looking on them as wholly wanting in independence, as too timid to fight for, even if not too stupid to form, any political creed of their own. In such a view there is surely much that is unjust, as well as much that is impolitic. The farmers—(at all events, now that the Ballot has given them for the first time independence)—are, at the worst, not so politi- cally hopeless as some other portions of the community, say, for instance, as the thousands of common-place middle- class electors in and round London, who, without any political aspirations whatever of their own, vote steadily for the Con- servatives, either because they fancy it more genteel or fashionable, not to say aristocratic, or because in their eyes patriotism is mostly an affair of fighting, and they think it traitorous to discountenance even such wretched and inglorious wars as those in Zululand and Afghanistan.
In its ulterior consequences, however, we regard the present uprising of the farmers as likely to exercise a most powerful influence on the course of public affairs, both, by forcing into prominence the great questions of land-law reform, and the liberation of agriculture from many mischievous impediments which form an important part of the Liberal programme ; and moreover, by rendering inevitable, sooner or later, unlikely as it may now appear, a cordial alliance and co-operation between the farmers and the Liberal party. If the present elections give existence to a tenant-farmers' party in the House of Com- mons, which, however small, is really in earnest, they will very soon discover that it is only by the aid of the Liberals that anything effectual can be done. However close may have been the old union between the farmers and the Conservatives (and there have been times within the last forty years when, but for the farmers, the Conservative party in the House of Commons would have well-nigh disappeared), it cannot long survive the conviction, on the part of the farmers, that from the Conservative landowners nothing but merely counterfeit legis- lation for the benefit of agriculturists can be hoped for. What is vitally important for the farmers at the present crisis is that they should send to represent them in Parliament men who, be they Conservatives or Liberals, will be real farmers' friends, and not sham ones,—will be farmers' friends first, and party politicians afterwards. Let the farmers look at Mr. Plimsoll, and contrast him with some of their own champions in the Parliament just dissolved. No doubt, there will be plenty of people to tell them that the seamen serving in merchant- vessels are best represented in Parliament by the shipowners who are Members of the House of Commons, and that Mr. Plimsoll, with his outcries about rotten and overloaded ships, and dangerously-stowed cargoes, is a mischievous agitator, busy at the old trick of " setting class against class." But, for all that, there would be at this moment no supervision worth talking of, of dangerous ships or cargoes. if there had been no Mr. Plimsoll, or if Mr. Plim- soll had not been a man (whatever mistakes he may have made) of indomitable earnestness. And if earnestness is the first thing needed in the farmers' friends in the new Parliament, scarcely less important is it that they shall have judgment enough to pursue only practicable objects,—that they shall follow the right scent, in spite of the many red-herrings which are sure to be trailed across their path. If farmers allow themselves to be persuaded into the absurd expectation that the nation can ever again be brought to submit to taxes on imported food, in order that the prices of agri- cultural produce may be kept up, they are past reason- ing with, and must be left to the teachings of a sad ex- perience. Transfers of charges from the county rates to the Consolidated Fund, such as were effected soon after the pre-
sent Government inherited the surplus of their predecessors, are clearly beyond hoping for, in the face of a huge deficit. Neither can the repeal of the Malt-tax, however much there may be to be said for it., be deemed within the range of prac- tical politics, until there is once again a considerable surplus revenue,—in other words, until the Liberals have been again several years in office. But in the main, farmers could not have a better guide to what is practicable in the way of legis- lation for the relief of agriculture, or to what the Liberal party can and ought to help them in, than in the series of " Questions to be put to Candidates," drawn up and circulated by the Farmers' Alliance.
Both with a view to the coming elections, and still more if we extend our view somewhat beyond these elections, we would earnestly impress upon all Liberal county electors the wisdom and importance of cordially lending a helping hand, when- ever possible, to the farmers. Liberals cannot, of course, endanger the seat of a Liberal candidate for the sake of a Conservative tenant-farmer, but this seems the only reservation needed. As between a candidate of the type of the Conservative majority in the late House of Commons and a Conservative tenant-farmer, there should be no hesitation whatever in giving hearty support to the latter. Let Liberals reflect that if the numerical majority of tenant-farmers are still Conservatives, the active and leading minds amongst them are, in their utter disappointment at the action of the Parlia- ment just dissolved, fast gravitating towards Liberalism, that upon the opinions of the intelligent leaders will ultimately depend the opinions of the general body, and especially of the new generation of farmers, and we think they will see good reason to believe that, in the elegant phrase newly introduced into our language, the Liberal party have every possible motive to " consolidate co-operation " with the Farmers.
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