DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22140#0359
PEASANT AGRICULTURE AND MANUFACTURE,
343
It is possible to conceive that the whole clothing of a household
may be supplied by industry carried on in the spare hours of those
who are generally occupied in a disferent calling. Such a result
was exceedingly common in those old days when the spinning
wheel was in every home, and the hand loom in many. It is said
that there are many districts in the civilized world in which all
the household linen in a new home, all the bedding, and the
greater part of the clothing, if not the whole, which the bride
possesses are the work of her own hands. Or what if the work-
man be also an occupier of land, which he cultivates in his spare
hours, the produce of which to a very considerable extent main-
tains his family ? In both these cases the cost of production
cannot be estimated, because if the labour had not been employed
as I have described, it would have been lost, let alone the chance
that the enforced idleness would have involved waste and expense.
I have heard some rigid economists talk of agricultural allotments
and spade husbandry as a return to barbarism, a deliberate con-
tempt for the progress of science. But the best economic con-
dition is not that in which the greatest amount of produce is
obtained at the cheapest rate, the greatest amount of capitalists-
pick up the greatest amount of profits ; but one in which the
greatest amount of workmen can live in the greatest possible
comfort and security. I do not profess to admire the condition
of the Scottish crofters ; but I am certain that it is better for the
country that they should live in content and hope, than that
thousands of them should be cleared off", in order to provide a
desert for a Yankee speculator to shoot over, and an aggregate
rent for a Scotch tradesman to collect. He must be a very sturdy
advocate of laisscz faire who affirms that it is better to create a
solitude for twenty square miles than have it peopled by human
beings. And yet so amazing is the insolence of some landowners,
that I have had to listen in my time to an angry, perhaps an
uneasy, defence of Scotch deer forests.
To Arthur Young, whose notes on agriculture in the latter part
of the eighteenth century are of such paramount importance to the
students of agricultural history, small holdings were an abomination.
When they were in the occupancy of labourers they hindered
enclosures, and ensured the continuance of the villainous three-
343
It is possible to conceive that the whole clothing of a household
may be supplied by industry carried on in the spare hours of those
who are generally occupied in a disferent calling. Such a result
was exceedingly common in those old days when the spinning
wheel was in every home, and the hand loom in many. It is said
that there are many districts in the civilized world in which all
the household linen in a new home, all the bedding, and the
greater part of the clothing, if not the whole, which the bride
possesses are the work of her own hands. Or what if the work-
man be also an occupier of land, which he cultivates in his spare
hours, the produce of which to a very considerable extent main-
tains his family ? In both these cases the cost of production
cannot be estimated, because if the labour had not been employed
as I have described, it would have been lost, let alone the chance
that the enforced idleness would have involved waste and expense.
I have heard some rigid economists talk of agricultural allotments
and spade husbandry as a return to barbarism, a deliberate con-
tempt for the progress of science. But the best economic con-
dition is not that in which the greatest amount of produce is
obtained at the cheapest rate, the greatest amount of capitalists-
pick up the greatest amount of profits ; but one in which the
greatest amount of workmen can live in the greatest possible
comfort and security. I do not profess to admire the condition
of the Scottish crofters ; but I am certain that it is better for the
country that they should live in content and hope, than that
thousands of them should be cleared off", in order to provide a
desert for a Yankee speculator to shoot over, and an aggregate
rent for a Scotch tradesman to collect. He must be a very sturdy
advocate of laisscz faire who affirms that it is better to create a
solitude for twenty square miles than have it peopled by human
beings. And yet so amazing is the insolence of some landowners,
that I have had to listen in my time to an angry, perhaps an
uneasy, defence of Scotch deer forests.
To Arthur Young, whose notes on agriculture in the latter part
of the eighteenth century are of such paramount importance to the
students of agricultural history, small holdings were an abomination.
When they were in the occupancy of labourers they hindered
enclosures, and ensured the continuance of the villainous three-