A working man
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The on-going arguments carried out through letters sent to the Birmingham Daily Post appear to have attracted the attention of Birmingham workers. The debate concerning rights to the land for agricultural labourers was responded to by someone who anonymously signed his name ‘A Working Man’.
This involvement by a working-class voice in a debate that was often carried out in middle-class settings stands as an important, if fragmentary, intervention into the land question of the day. The ‘working man’ from ‘kings heath’ argued that: ‘A man with a small farm may not be able to keep his hunter, send his children to a boarding school, or provide his daughters with a piano, but in a majority of cases a man on a small holding, with an ordinary amount of intelligence and industry, would be able to provide for his family much better supply of wholesome, if homely, fare, than the great majority of working men in towns.’
Transcription:
THE LAND QUESTIONTo the editor of the Daily Post.
Sir, - I have read with great interest the letters on the above question which have lately appeared in your columns, and being myself one of the many who have been compelled to come in to Birmingham for the living denied to us in our native districts, with your permission, I should like to add a few words on the subject. It seems to me very desirable that in considering this and the many kindred subjects which are undoubtedly fast coming to the front, we ought to strive to free ourselves from the miserable suspicion which leads us to see a foe in every one who differs from us. I was much pleased to see from the letter of Mr Fowler that even from a land agent's view changes are desirable, though he does not appear to approve of the suggestion put forward by Mr Collings - to whom, by the way, the hearty thanks of all working men are due for the earnest and thoroughly English manner in which he has brought this question before the public. A little time ago he (Mr Collings) was taunted as being a man of but one idea - an acre of land and cabbages; now he is decried as one who is bent upon turning the world upside down: the one statement being as great a fallacy as the other. Some time ago I met with a man who, in speaking of the movement for the extension of the franchise, said, "and when they (the people) have got this they will want something else." Exactly; we should hardly have demonstrated as we did merely for the vote. It was because we did want something else that we strove for the right to vote, recognising in that the means to an end and as that question has been so amicably and satisfactorily settled, so I believe these others will be. There is no need of panic and hysterics. Let it be understood and recognised that we are all entitled to the same natural right - to live one as another - and that no law shall be allowed on the statute book which favours one section of the community at the expense of another; and surely the difficulties are not beyond the bounds of common sense, statesmanship, and patriotism, for I take it that patriotism is as nobly vindicated in caring for the welfare of the people as in fighting for their so-called honour.
Mr Fowler and others appear to take it for granted that land in small lots spells failure. As well might I argue that small businesses are necessarily failures. This argument calls in question the economy of the Creator, seeing that tilling and dressing is the only direct work that He set man to do. The fact is patent, too, that hundreds - aye, thousands - of men have been ruined through their farms being too large. Their capital being sunk in the land, and the appliances necessary for its cultivation on so large a scale, they have been unable to stand the strain of a succession of bad seasons. A man with a small farm may not be able to keep his hunter, send his children to boarding school, or provide his daughters with a piano, but in the majority of cases a man on a small holding, with an ordinary amount of intelligence and industry, would be able to provide for his family much better supply of wholesome, if homely, fare, than the great majority of working men in towns.
