WCP2668

[1]

Moor Street 95 Colmore Row,¹

Birmingham,

Feb. 19 1886

Dear Sir,

I must first thank you much for your so prompt and kind contribution towards the pages of our new periodical. It is to get just such opinions as you so admirably express into a shape which will come definitely before the public that we are anxious to make it a success.

As I said before, I largely agree with your view as to the Allotments Act being made compulsory and I think it very probable [2] that the pressure of events and the force of awakened public opinion will lead to a change in this direction without great delay.

Your opinion as to the advisability of putting the unemployed to work upon the land is worthy of most serious consideration. The difficulty that I can see would be the temporary housing of the persons who are out of employ. Certainly, if large works, such as a Railway, are commenced in any part of the country the necessary workmen do squeeze in somewhere, and remit money to their friends at a distance; and it would be better, as you say, to turn some of our unoccupied land into food-growing, even if we only lodge the labourers upon it, in the district, and arrange for the remittance of their spare wages to the families [3] in the towns. It will be far better than, as Professor Marshall² points out, setting so-called "relief months" into operation in the great towns, and thereby really attracting unemployed men from the country districts into the towns, and so making matters worse instead of better.

I believe all of these questions in which we are interested will become enormously more to the front under the pressure of the political changes which have given power at last to the smaller people in the rural districts who will combine with the intelligent classes of the towns to solve the land question on a satisfactory basis.

I will bear all your suggestive letter in mind.

[4]

Yours faithfully | Fredc. Impey³ [signature]

A. R. Wallace Esq.,

Frith Hill,

Godalming