COTTAGE, a little house for habitation, with a small portion of land attached to it.
AMONG the various schemes devised for checking the progress of pauperism in England, and for augmenting the comfort and happiness of the lower classes, few seem to have obtained a greater degree of popularity, or to be more generally patronised, than the COTTAGE SYSTEM:—that system which proposes, under certain restrictions, to furnish the industrious poor with cottages and small pieces of land, to be used for the purpose of keeping kine, raising potatoes, or for some other species of husbandry.
It is not our intention to detail the various peculiarities of the plans of different authors by whom the efficacy of the cottage system has been maintained. We shall content ourselves with examining the fundamental principles on which the whole scheme is founded; and, in so doing, we shall endeavour to resolve the important question, whether the more minute division of landed property, and the letting of small farms and patches of ground, to any considerable portion of the lower classes, would tend to improve their condition and character, and to reduce the sum total of human misery.
As the effects of the cottage or small farming system on the condition of the poor must, in a great measure, depend on the fact of its tending to increase or diminish the exchangeable value of raw produce, it will be necessary, first of all, to inquire into its probable operation in this respect. If it should tend to reduce the price of corn, cattle, &c. or to render their acquisition less difficult, that would be a strong presumption in its favour. But, on the other hand, if it should tend to raise the price of these articles of provision, or to make them exchange for a greater quantity of labour, its introduction would
obviously be prejudicial to the community, and especially to the labouring classes.
We have already endeavoured to show that the price of raw produce has a natural tendency to rise as society advances, and as a country becomes more populous. (Principles of the Corn Laws.) The best lands being first brought under cultivation, recourse is afterwards had to those which are inferior, and require a greater quantity of labour to make them yield the same produce. The real value of this produce, which is always regulated by the quantity of labour necessary to its production, is therefore increased; and it exchanges for a greater portion of those commodities the production of which has not also become more difficult.
Had the inventive genius of man been limited in its powers; had the ploughs, harrows, and other machines and implements used in agriculture, at once attained their utmost degree of perfection, and remained ever after in the same state; the rise in the price of raw produce consequent to the increase of population would have been much more obvious. When in such a state of things it became necessary to resort to poorer soils in order to raise additional quantities of food, a corresponding increase of mental labour would have been required. On this hypothesis no improvement could have taken place in the powers of the labourer himself. Having already reached the perfection of his art, a greater degree of animal exertion could alone have overcome fresh obstacles. More labour would have been necessary to the production of a greater quantity of food; and it would have been necessary in the precise proportion according to which the quantity
was increased. Thus, supposing the labour of ten men to have been required, during a given number of days, to produce ten quarters of wheat, from land of a certain quality,—when fifteen quarters were produced in the same time and from the same land, fifteen hands must have been employed in its production. The effects of improved machinery, and of a better system of manuring and cropping, are here supposed to be entirely out of the question. Had the arts continued in this stationary state, the price of raw produce must obviously have varied directly with every variation in the quality of the soils successively brought under cultivation.
But in an improving society, the circumstances which regulate the real and exchangeable values of raw produce are extremely different. Here, too, it has doubtless a constant tendency to rise; for notwithstanding that every successive improvement in agriculture, and every new device by which labour may be saved, and the energies and powers of machinery augmented, operate to lower prices,—still the rise of profits, and the consequent stimulus given to population, by every fall in the price of raw produce, increase the demand, and again raise prices, by forcing the cultivation of poorer soils. But this rise is rendered much less perceptible than it would be in a stationary state of society. After inferior soils have been brought under cultivation, more labourers may be required to raise the same quantities of food; but as the powers of the labourers are augmented, a smaller number is required, in proportion to the work to be performed, than if no such improvement had taken place. It is in this way that the tendency to an increase in the price of raw produce is counteracted in the progress of society. The productive energies of the earth itself gradually diminish, and we are compelled to resort to soils of a constantly-decreasing degree of fertility; but the productive energy of the labour employed to extract produce from these soils is as constantly improved. Two directly opposite and continually-acting principles are thus set in motion. From the operation of the causes to which we have alluded, the increasing sterility of the soil is sure, in the long run, to overmatch the increasing power of machinery and the improvements of agriculture, so that prices experience a corresponding rise. Occasionally, however, meliorations in the latter more than compensate, during lengthened periods, for any deterioration in the quality of the former, and a fall of prices is the consequence. Should an equilibrium take place, and the opposite principles exactly counterpoise each other, prices would remain stationary.
Had the whole surface of the earth been originally of the same degree of fertility, and had the same outlay of capital and labour always continued to yield the same amount of raw produce, the effects of improved machinery and agriculture in reducing prices would have been quite obvious. If such had been the case, raw produce must have invariably fallen in value as society advanced. There would have been nothing to counteract the effects of improvements. The quantity of labour required for the production of all sorts of commodities would, by reason of improvements in machinery and the arts, have been almost always diminishing; and of course their real price would have been as constantly on the decline.
It results, as a consequence of these principles, that any constitution of society, or any method of dividing landed property, which should operate to counteract the spirit of improvement, or which should prevent agriculturists from adopting the most efficacious methods for saving labour and expense in carrying on their business, would be materially injurious.
The rate of profit, and consequently the power to accumulate capital and population, is ultimately regulated by
the price of farm produce. If its price be relatively low, that is, if it be easily produced, a comparatively small outlay of labour will suffice to obtain a large quantity of produce. If, in a country thus situated, property be protected, and full scope be given to accumulation, wealth will rapidly increase. Where labour is more than ordinarily productive, the labourer receives a large share of the produce of his exertions, at the same time that a large net profit remains to his employer. In America, labour is extremely well rewarded, but the profits of stock are, notwithstanding, much higher than in Europe. The choice of immense tracts of fertile and unoccupied land relieves the farmers of the United States from the necessity of cultivating any but the richest soils. The wants of the country can be supplied without having recourse to lands of an inferior quality; and although the wages of workmen are comparatively high, yet, as their labour is proportionally productive, capitalists realize a corresponding and ample profit.
The difficulty of raising sufficient supplies of corn is the principal cause why old-settled and densely-peopled countries advance slowly in the accumulation of capital and riches, and why the profits of stock in them are comparatively low. Were it not, however, for the improvements which are constantly making in agriculture, this difficulty would be greatly increased. These, by enabling the increasing sterility of the soil to be partially overcome, reduce the cost of production, or the real price of food; and by this means the rate of profit, and consequently the power to accumulate wealth and population, is prevented from falling so low as it would do in a society where no improvements were made.
Now this, we apprehend, must be the situation of every country in which a minute division of landed property, or an extended cottage system, has been introduced. The produce of a small farm of five, ten, or even twenty acres, may perhaps enable its occupier to preserve his family from downright starvation, but it will never enable him to accumulate stock to any extent. "Where," asks Mr Young, "is the little farmer to be found who will cover his whole farm with marl at the rate of 100 or 150 tons per acre? who will drain all his land at the expense of two or three pounds an acre? who will pay a heavy price for the manure of towns, and convey it thirty miles by land carriage? who will float his meadows at the expense of £5 per acre? who, to improve the breed of his sheep, will give 1000 guineas for the use of a single ram for a single season? who will send across the kingdom to distant provinces for new implements, and for men to use them? who employ and pay men for residing in provinces where practices are found which they want to introduce into their farms? At the very mention of such exertions, common in England, what mind can be so perversely framed as to imagine, for a single moment, that such things are to be effected by little farmers? Deduct from agriculture ALL the practices that have made it flourishing in this island, and you have precisely the management of small farms." (Travels in France, 2d edition, vol. i. p. 410.) Besides, though it were admitted that small farmers might accumulate capital, they could not apply it in the most efficient manner. "The division of labour which, in every pursuit of industry, gives skill and dispatch, cannot take place on the greatest farms in the degree in which it is found in manufactures; but upon small farms it does not take place at all. The same man by turns applies to every work of the farm; upon the larger occupation there are ploughmen, thrashers, hedgers, shepherds, cow-herds, ox-herds, limeburners, drainers, &c. This circumstance is of considerable importance, and decides that every work will be better performed on a large