production of calico, increase their out-turn as they may, the surplus is continually being abstracted from them.

Manchester in twenty years may double or treble its annual output of calico, but if, in the same twenty years, its neighbours, who hold all the food-producing area, double or treble their rents, then the surplus in Manchester vanishes, and manufacturers in a puzzled condition cry out against hard times, foreign competition, or the like, and their helpless labourers remain as ill-fed and ill-clad as though no increase whatever of the material for clothing them had been obtained by their ingenuity or united action.

These raised rents cause an increase in the price of land produce, and bring manufacturers and their labourers into collision—the former wanting wages reduced, because calico has to be sold at lower prices, the latter demanding an advance of wages because they have to pay more for their food; and both parties, losing sight of the real cause of their troubles-the calico transformed into higher rents to their landholding neighbours-blindly resort to a strike or a lock-out, when they should be searching out the causes which are transferring all this increase of their produce into other hands.

This is one chief reason why all our increased power of production has kept our operatives from participating in its results, and the time may be approaching when the increase of calico-makers should stop, if indeed it may not be necessary to reduce their number considerably. Were half of them to be labouring in the production of food, and increasing the productive powers of the neglected valleys of Lancashire, Yorkshire, and the neighbouring counties, then calico would again have a higher bartering value, and the reduced number engaged in it would obtain more of the comforts of life in exchange for their labour.

But would not this transfer of manufacturing labour to the land simply help to reproduce the agricultural labourers' misery of the southern and midland counties, and would not they suffer from advances of rent also? some may ask. True enough, unless, to avoid both possibilities, proper precautions were taken at the outset, and this might necessitate a law making the rents payable in kind or in corn. It was a Cumberland landholder, the late Sir James Graham, who first uttered the deluding dogma, Up with the horn, and down with the corn,' a dogma which has helped so much to deprive the land of an adequate supply of labour; and to recover this supply in an ample form is the necessity of our time, to the increase of our native-grown food supply; and this may best be accomplished by a return to the old system of small farms.

Land in permanent pasture is land practically uncultivated, and nothing less than a national crime, and those responsible for such culpable neglect are indirectly responsible for all the want and misery which proceed from this neglect. Ireland, we hear, is fast becoming overrun with weeds, and its pastures of less value in con

sequence. Such is the result of Up with the horn, and down with the corn,' and the short-sighted policy of driving labour off the land. Our permanent pasture sleep has lasted for years, and our final harvest promises to become one of tares exclusively, unless we awake out of sleep, and ascertain what the time of day may be: whether grass without labour, and beef and mutton at famine prices, or land cultivated to the highest pitch of perfection, and plenty of work, food, clothing, and shelter for all, should be the aim of those in charge of the land of the nation-our sesame cave, or mysterious laboratory, from which everything we can possess, or invest our labour in, has to be produced.

If this be so, how needful is it to have more labour devoted to the land, that the wants of all may be amply supplied; and if small farms mean more produce, then this is the system which will be most beneficial to countries of large population and limited agricultural areas. True, by an immense extension of calico-making machinery, by making our small population produce as much as the population of two worlds, we have managed to get some surplusage of calico to send to America, Russia, &c., and barter it there for the bread we lack; but can this go on for ever? Will these countries give us bread for calico, when they can make more of the latter than they themselves require? And has any political economist ever yet calculated the loss incurred by sending calico thousands of miles away, to be brought back again as bread, compared with the cost of the same exchange if it were to be effected within our own shores ? Further, wherein consists the 'free trade' which compels us to employ land thousands of miles away to grow the food of our labourers, while land at our doors is kept practically barren, deprived of a proper supply of labour, and largely given up to the support and propagation of wild and sport-producing animals? Under such conditions as these our boasted free trade is only a delusion; and until this abuse is removed, and our food-producers have freedom to invest their labour in our food-producing area, without the hindrances which at present exist, and with a remuneration for said labour based upon equitable and Christian laws, we have not, with all we have accomplished, so much as mastered the alphabet of the complete gospel of free trade.

If the alphabet of free trade, then, be the freedom from monopoly of our own soil, and its first teaching the devotion of more labour to it, the advantage of small farms becomes apparent, and the method whereby this might be arranged, so as to prevent all possibility of their being again absorbed by larger farms, and of arbitrary' advances of their rents, would be to secure to the labourer in occupa-' tion a proportional share of the produce. For instance, the labourer, in return for the land and necessary dwelling upon it, might pay' over to the holder of the land a certain proportion of its produce, and ' have a right to the rest as the reward of his labour. These proVOL. V.-No. 25.

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portions there would be no difficulty in determining, were the principle once admitted; and in fixing them, another proportion might also be, agreed upon as due to the State, the primary holder and legal owner. of all land, to inaugurate a system which would be equivalent to the re-enactment of the Land Tax of William the Third at present values, and the first step towards the attainment of a perfect system of direct taxation, copied as the Land Tax of William the Third probably was -from the policy of the greatest ruler of Ancient Egypt, as recorded in Genesis xlvii. 20, 23, 24, 25, and 26:

And Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh, for the Egyptians sold every man his field, because the famine prevailed over them: so the land became Pharaoh's.

Then Joseph said unto the people, Behold, I have bought you this day and your land for Pharaoh: lo, here is seed for you, and ye shall sow the land.

And it shall come to pass in the increase that ye shall give the fifth part unto Pharaoh, and four parts shall be your own, for seed of the field, and for your food, and for them of your households, and for food for your little ones.

And they said, Thou hast saved our lives; let us find grace in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh's servants.

And Joseph made it a law over the land of Egypt unto this day, that Pharaoh should have the fifth part; except the land of the priests only, which became not Pharaoh's.

Were a system arranged by which our food-producers would have the encouragement of a fairly remunerative proportion of their produce, a wholesome stimulus would be given to their exertions, and our native soil might soon be rescued from the neglect under which it has too long languished.

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This system of participation in results, if once fairly set going, would soon extend into other branches of our industries. It has been shown what unsatisfactory results are derived from piece-work; and if we are to avoid the Scylla of skulking' in time-work, and the Charybdis of scamping' in piece-work, it may only be accomplished by enlisting the labourers' own interest and co-operation, by permitting them to share in the results of their labour in some equitably just way, calculated to insure proper industrial application, and the highest personal interest in their respective productions.

We have seen that it is impossible to get labourers to attend to quality under piece-work, and some (the minority, it is only fair to add) will not perform a fair amount under time-work; but if all were labouring knowing that they were to have a certain fixed share in the value of their produce, then they would endeavour to increase this share, by working assiduously to obtain the greatest possible quantity consistent with quality, at the same time aiming at quality, as essential, if not in all cases for its own sake, as it ought to be, still to be sought after in every case, if only to secure the highest value of the thing produced.

The consideration of the best methods of cultivating the soil of

England seems to be inseparably connected with the continued welfare of all her other industries, and it is open to any observer to conclude that, owing to the incubus of heavy land rents and colossal holdings, the land of England is gradually going out of cultivation, and it should be patent to all that this may some day unexpectedly bring a famine within our shores. And to prevent this possibility, whether immediately or remotely probable, it may be necessary for this doctrine to be preached in some practical form: The land to those who can best cultivate it for the general benefit.'

And as an ordeal of a severely trying kind seems to be threatening the prosperity of our manufacturing industries, there may be the greatest necessity for more attention to be given to these subjects, to prevent our labouring population from being reduced to still greater hardships and privations than those which already exist.

The leading advocates of measures calculated to improve the condition of the people, who have most deservedly won the gratitude and esteem of every well-wisher of his country, are turning their attention to the land question as the great question of the near future, and they may be respectfully solicited to consider whether they have sufficiently calculated the probable effects of their proposed remedy, 'free trade in land.' This remedial measure, if ever tried, may be productive of more harm than good, as every succeeding sale of land at a higher price will intensify the already severe monopolistic pressure of the holder's claims for rent, to the increase of the burden to be borne, by its cultivators in the first place, and by the consumers of its produce the public-in the second.

The advocates of this doubtful remedy point to France, in support of their theory, as a flourishing agricultural country, and attribute its prosperity to its eight millions of peasant proprietors; but there may be a slight fallacy here. The prosperity is not the direct result of the proprietorship, but of the perfect cultivation; and this latter is quite as compatible with an equitably fair tenure as with a proprietorship, and much more within the reach of peasant labourers.. Many labourers would be able to commence the cultivation of a small farm, were their rents to be a proportional part of the crop after it was reaped, but how many would be able to embark in the scheme if they were required to purchase the land out and out before they were permitted to put a spade into it? Free trade in land may enable capitalists to become landholders, but it would rather hinder than help labourers to become cultivators, by placing heavier rent-charges upon the land to pay interest on the increased capital, and would inevitably lead to the production of a relatively dearer food-supply for the people. Between free trade in land,' then, and an increase of peasant proprietors and peasant cultivators,' there are great gulfs fixed.

W. LATTIMER.

THE CAUSES OF THE ZULU WAR

divides itself

THE history of our relations with the Zulus naturally, for my present purpose, into three periods of very different length-one from our settlement in Natal to the annexation of the Transvaal, the second from the annexation of the Transvaal to the award of certain commissioners on a disputed land claim, and the third from the date of that award to the invasion of Zululand by Lord Chelmsford.

We all now know that the Zulu kingdom was founded by one Chaka, a man of great military genius and unbounded ferocity—a terrible conqueror, not so much regardless of human life as greedy of blood and empire. Yet this man, having saved the lives of a few Englishmen, contracted a respect amounting almost to deference for the English. In his own merciless but picturesque phrase, reported by Sir Theophilus Shepstone, 'he was willing to rank next to the English, but he would permit no black power to share the sunlight with him.' Sir Theophilus adds that the Zulus still consider this declaration of the chief whose memory they most respect to be sacredly binding on them.'

Accordingly, when the colony of Natal was founded, the most friendly relations were at once established between the English and Panda, the then king. The Tugela and Buffalo rivers were then established as our boundary, and have remained so ever since. Crowds of malcontents flying from Panda's tyranny sought protection under the British flag, but the exodus caused no ill feeling. By a singular compromise the cattle of the immigrants were restored; but the people (now with their descendants amounting to 300,000) were protected, and, thanks to the constructive genius of Sir Theophilus, have been moulded into a contented population from whom, if something may be feared, still more perhaps may be hoped. We have had no encroachments on one side, no cattle-stealing on the other. Our neighbours, with all their faults, are not, it seems, petty pilferers..

The following paper on Natal policy is drawn up at the desire of the Editor of the Nineteenth Century. I am afraid that the time allowed me for its composition will scarcely enable me to do justice to my own strong convictions on that anxious and difficult question.