with the land around them, form comfortable and attractive little homesteads.

Mr. S. Thornely (clerk to the County Council), referring to these buildings, states :

"Very good houses, consisting of a good kitchen and living-room, with back kitchen and larder and three good bedrooms, with necessary outbuildings, including stable, tool-house, copper for boiling pig food, and generally two pigsties, have been erected, and the contracted price has averaged £286, excluding hauling."

The men engage their own architects and, no doubt, examine the contracts and watch the progress of the building of their own homes. This in itself is a useful training in business affairs. The advisers of the County Council seem to be careful men, and to have taken ample precautions that the ratepayers should not lose by "land speculation." The interest charged and the amount of instalments are, in the words of Mr. Thornely, "worked out with a view to leave a fair profit to the county ratepayers."

It may be stated, roughly, that the men pay, on an average, £40 per acre for the land-exclusive of the buildings-and that their annual payments (reckoning 4 per cent on the fifth paid down) are about £2 per

acre.

These are full prices for land that was, when bought, of an indifferent, if not a poor quality. But the annual payment per acre is much less than the men would have to pay as tenants under private persons, besides which, they are owners of the soil, and at the end of forty years all payments will cease.

1 See "County Council Times," December, 1904. Article by Mr. Thornely.

It is evident, however, that the Board of Agriculture, basing their charges on 24 per cent, instead of 4 per cent, could supply land at a much lower cost than local authorities (for the reasons given) are able or disposed to do. But, after some years' experience of the experiment, the clerk of the County Council is able to say:

"Hitherto it has been an all-round success, and there are no arrears whatever in the payment of the half-yearly instalments. . . . The men are thrifty, sober, and industrious as a class, and the women are, if anything, better than the men.

This is not the only effort which the Worcester local authorities have made to retain working-men on the land. Some years ago the North Bromsgrove Urban District Council, of which Mr. Frank Smith is a member, acting under the Allotments Act, 1887, acquired a field of forty-three acres (the Horse Course). This field, which adjoins the Woodrow Farm above referred to, was divided into allotments of from a quarter of an acre to one acre each, which were let at reasonable rents. Several of the tenants, who subsequently became peasant proprietors on the Woodrow Farm, were enabled to pay down the required fifth of the purchase price by money made (in addition to other earnings) out of these allotments. The allotment was, in fact, a stepping-stone to the larger holding. Further, some land, situate in Perryfields, consisting of fortyseven acres, had for some years been let on lease as allotments by a private owner. These fields were recently offered for sale, and the men, fearing that

1 One of the holders has already repaid the County Council the whole of the money advanced, although forty years is the time allowed for repayment.

by a change of ownership they would lose the land, applied to the County Council to secure it for them. The Council thereupon bought the land, at a cost of £3000, and when the lease has expired-in two or three years-it will be sold to applicants under the provisions of the Small Holdings Act, 1892. About ten years ago, in another part of the county, the Council took, on a lease of twenty-one years, fortyeight acres of glebe land, which they have also let in allotments.

But the benefits conferred on the peasants and others at Catshill are not confined to them. They extend to the shopkeepers, manufacturers, and others. Take a homely illustration of the process. These men before they were placed on the land came into a town-say to Birmingham-to seek employment. The reply of employers to their applications was: "We don't want your labour; we have no vacancies." These same men now come into the same locality, and their application is in a different form. "You did not want our labour. Do you want our produce— fruit, vegetables, flowers, etc.?" The reply now is, "Yes, we did not want your labour, but we are in daily need of your produce, and will take as much as you can bring,"1

To carry on the illustration, the men receive the money for their produce, but do not put it into a stocking. They straightway lay out most of it in clothes, boots, groceries, spades, implements, and such other requirements as their new position makes necessary. Their horses have to be shod, carts and harness

1 Of course, the men do not always sell direct to the consumer, but to the middle-man or the retail dealer. This, however, does not affect the principle of the illustration.