requisite to give him a chance, this picked agricultural labourer
would succeed; and I have inclined to think he would not succeed. I
need not therefore express any opinion as to what would happen if
Government were to take 10,000 or 100,000 farm-labourers, advance
them L200 each, and place them in five-acre or ten-acre plots: there
would be a tremendous bill to pay, and the plan of peasant-
proprietors would be put aside for many a day. If the plan is to be
successful it must be introduced gradually and in a business manner,
_i.e._ what does not pay must not be persisted in.

The plan, now frequently put forward, that Government is to employ
all men out of work to reclaim and bring into cultivation waste
lands, is liable to additional objections. Who is to fix the wages,
the hours of labour, and the tale of work for the Government
labourers? If these were fixed as the advocates of the plan wish them
fixed, Government would soon have all the labourers of the country in
its employ. If, on the other hand, these were fixed below the market
rate, Government would only have such labour as the Poor-Law Unions
now have, and which they find hardly worth employing.

Leaving this (practically grave) difficulty aside, if a heath or a
moor is now uncultivated it is because nobody sees how it can be
profitably brought into cultivation; it can always at a sufficient
outlay be reclaimed, but that will not be done unless it is
calculated that the rent of the land when reclaimed will pay the
interest on the whole expense of reclamation, and something besides.
If Government reclaims land that private persons cannot reclaim with
profit, we may be sure that Government will suffer a considerable
loss. This must be provided out of taxes: are the promoters of
reclamation of wastes by Government prepared for this?