Animal Rights History »» J. Todd Ferrier

On Behalf of the Creatures, "Some Economic Problems"

Some Economic Problems

[page 56] THE land question is a problem that is ever with us. Men think that in the right adjustment oft it they would find a panacea for a great many of the social ills of life. The possibility of Land Nationalisation has engaged the minds of more than ordinary Socialists. It commanded the attention of some of the finest literary men and women of the last century. It lay at the foundation of Shelley's idea of a "Republic," which finds expression in all his chief poems. It is implied in William Morris's "Earthly Paradise," notwithstanding the classic sources of that poem. It is breathed through Robert Buchanan's "The Drama of Kings"; and the whole teaching of the higher Socialism, led by the gifted John Addington Symonds, points to it as one important means towards the realisation of Universal Brotherhood.

There can be no doubt in the mind of the serious student of our national conditions that a re-adjustment of the land would contribute somewhat to the solution of the social and economic problems; though a mere alteration in our land laws concerning ownership, limitations, and responsibilities would not effect the radical change that so many dream of. The true solution must be found in an entire change in the national habits, so that the conditions under which land is held may be such as to contribute to the wealth, the health, the intelligence, the moral fibre, and the happiness of the people. For, after all, the prosperity of the nation does not so much depend [page 57] upon who holds the land, as it does upon the wise and sacred use to which it is put. No doubt an unfaithful and selfish landlordism is responsible for the emigration of so many of the finest sons of the soil. But we must not shut our eyes to the fact that the flesh-eating propensities of the nation have done much to nurture the very spirit which we wish now to uproot.

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More than a century has passed since William Paley wrote his "Principles of Moral and Political Economy"; but he said things then which might have been written for these days, though the evil has increased tenfold since his time.

That the land problem is a very old one, and that it has engaged the attention of some of the greatest moral and political philosophers, may be gathered from our best literature. And Paley stands out pre-eminently among them as having grasped the full significance to this country of a right use of the soil. He writes:

"So far as the state of population is governed and limited by the quantity of provision, perhaps there is no single cause that affects it so powerfully as the kind and quality of food which change or usage hath introduced into a country. In England, notwithstanding the produce of the soil has been of late considerably increased by the enclosure of wastes and the adoption, in many places, of a more successful husbandry, yet we do not observe a corresponding addition to the number of inhabitants; the reason of which appears to me to be the more general consumption of animal food amongst us. [page 58] Many ranks of people whose ordinary diet Was, in the last century, prepared almost entirely from milk, roots, and vegetables, now require every day a considerable portion of the flesh of animals. Hence a great part of the richest lands of the country are converted to pasturage. Much also of the bread-corn, which went directly to the nourishment of human bodies, now only contributes to it by fattening the flesh of sheep and oxen. The mass and volume of provisions are hereby diminished, and what is gained in the amelioration of the soil is lost in the quality of the produce.

"This consideration teaches us that tillage, as an object of national care and encouragement, is universally preferable to pasturage, because the kind of provision which it yields goes much farther in the sustentation of human life. Tillage is also recommended by this additional advantage that it affords employment to a much more numerous peasantry."

And in a preceding paragraph he writes:

"If we measure the quantity of provision by the number of human bodies it will support in due health and vigour, this quantity, the extent and quality of the soil from which it is raised being given, will depend greatly upon the kind. For instance, a piece of ground capable of supplying animal flesh sufficient for the sustenance of ten persons, would sustain at least the double of that number with grain, roots and milk." ("The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy," Book xii., ch. ii., pp. 599-601.)

And his opinion of mere pasturage is thus expressed in the same work:

[page 59] "Indeed, pasturage seems to be the art of a nation, either imperfectly civilised, as are many of the tribes in the internal parts of Asia ; or of a nation, like Spain, declining from its summit by luxury and inactivity." (Book vi., ch. xi. )

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There could be no heavier indictment of our own nation written to-day; and it is little short of a prophecy whose fulfilment will be assured unless our national habits change, and we cultivate the land to feed men rather than graze cattle for food.

Since those days a host of students of Social Economics have borne out Paley's contention, and amplified it. They have shown that not only would good land under the plough support double the number of human beings that it would in pasture, but that in some cases it would even produce six times the amount of available food. Thus Mr. Arthur Arnold, in speaking at Salford on February 20th, 1879, said "The green curtain which our land system has encouraged Nature to draw over the depopulation of Ireland is now advancing from the west towards the east of England. Where the ploughman was wont to whistle over agriculture, the beast grazes, requiring nearly three acres of pasture to produce the quantity of meat which one acre would yield to suitable tillage.

And the cultured Professor of University College, London, Francis William Newman, wrote in his " Essays on Diet "—

"If men feed wholly on beef, then four, five, or even seven acres for the cattle would not go so far in giving [page 60] food to men as a single acre devoted to feed us by its vegetable crops. Moreover, in a region given over to grazing, a small rustic population suffices to tend the cattle; hence the rural areas are emptied of men, who are constantly driven out of the country into the town. This is a grave national evil." Essays on Diet, vii., p. 129)

And again, speaking of the danger which threatens our country, he writes:

"Just alarm is widely spreading concerning a fact too broad to be denied—the growth of our towns, and the disproportionate emptiness of our country. This is everywhere the symptom of progressive natural decay. The Roman poet Horace saw it already before his eyes in Italy. Small freeholds had become rare. On the great estates were beautiful villas, splendid parks cultivated for elegance, not for service. The fruit-tree was evicted (to use his phrase) by the barren tree. The towns were full and the country empty. Grazing superseded agriculture; cattle took the place of robust freemen, and were tended by a sparse population of slaves.… No impartial and well-informed person can look on Great Britain without discerning the same alarming phenomenon in contrasting our rural districts with our towns. … If the towns renounced flesh-eating, we should see in a single generation, even without improved land tenure, a tide of emigration set the other way—from towns to country. Rustic industry would be immensely developed. All motive for expatriation of our robustest youth would, for a long time yet, be removed, and the country might be enormously enriched, not in [page 61] an upper stratum of great fortunes, but (if national morality kept pace with wealth) down to the bottom of the community.… The area for which twenty men suffice to tend oxen grazing on it, might need the labour of a thousand (including rustic artizans) if it were duly laid out for crops." (Essay iv., pp 54, 55.)

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The value of this contribution of Newman's to the solution of this most pressing problem cannot be overestimated. His was no hurried and partially-weighed judgment, but that of the true philosopher and seer who had his country's good at heart, and pointed out the true and only way of national redemption. And he stands not alone in his contention. In the beginning of last century, the great jurist, Jeremy Bentham, lifted up his voice on behalf of the animals. "The day may come when other animals (than man) may obtain those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny." Thus writes he in his "Principles of Morals and Legislation" And his accomplished pupil, John Stuart Mill, in his "Principles of Political Economy," advocated the rights of the sub-human races, and urged that laws should be passed to drive terror into the heart of "The domestic tyrant." Lord Playfair, M.D., F.R.S., C.B., who for several years conducted investigations on behalf of the Government into the value of foods, has shown in a most complete and emphatic way the economic value of the simpler forms of diet over flesh-meats. In order to obtain sufficient nourishment for the body a [page 62] certain amount of proteinaceous matter must be eaten. Proteid builds up the body-tissue, and thus supplies the waste that is constantly going on. And Lord Playfair stated how that could be dole, giving the amount contained in various foods, and their cost. And in that estimate he showed how a composition of cheese, bread, oatmeal, and vegetables, (peas, potatoes, etc.), will furnish the body with all the proteid matter necessary, at a cost four times less than meat, without the deleterious effects which the latter produces. So that the cost of the maintenance of one life on flesh-foods would sustain four persons on natural diet.

Like results were found by Dr. Edward Smith, F.R.S., when he conducted a Government enquiry into the foods of the people. And the well-known statistician, Mr. W. Hoyle, stated before the Manchester Statistical Society, that a shilling's worth of flour, or oatmeal, or fruit, or selected vegetables, would give as much nourishment as five shillings 'worth of flesh. Thus, were the non-flesh diet adopted by the working people, they would save considerably in money; they would be stronger and healthier and happier; and the increased usage of vegetables, nuts, fruits, and cereals would rehabilitate the peasantry, and bring back to the country districts their long-lost prosperity.

Mr. Eustace H. Miles, M.A., of Cambridge, the great Athlete and Dietist, says in his excellent work, "Muscle, Brain and Diet":

"But the days will come… when we shall see in the country and the villages a healthier race once more; the swarms of pallid unwholesome clerks working at [page 63] starvation wages, or else unemployed, will not disappear for good, but they will become smaller in proportion to the hale population, cheaply but sufficiently fed, and taking exercise in the open air, and earning enough for a comfortable and useful life, chiefly because now at length they will know what to buy.… And, with fresh employments and better use of the materials which Nature has given us, we shall have room for a population far larger than our present one.… Think of what might eventually be done with the land now used for pasturage! Think of the population of Fruit and Vegetable-growers that it might contain ! " (Pp.. 156,—7.)

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These men are not mere dreamers of dreams. They neither exaggerate the seriousness of the evils nor the need for and the possibility of reformation. Nor are the methods they suggest the wrong ones. We must return to Nature and follow her ways. It will be the only solution of the economic problem. We see the villages swept of their best life; beasts grazing where men should be tilling. We behold the vast multitudes of the unemployed walking the streets of our towns and cities. We know that thousands of homes in our land are in absolute want. We erect vast asylums for the insane, many of whom are driven so by our corrupt habits of living. We build great unions to hold the poor and destitute—made poor and destitute by a civilisation which is no civilisation at all, since it has grown into a huge battleground between wealth and labour, between birth and genuine ability, between a nameless slavery and a yearning [page 64] liberty, in which the socially weakest and poorest go to the wall. We start organisations to dispense charity to the needy, who in their heart of hearts would a thousand times rather have some honest work to do whence they might earn their own daily bread. All of the vast army who tramp, tramp ! tramp ! ! our streets are not the unwilling workers, the idle fellows that many dream of as they read their papers, sitting comfortably by their own fireside; for they contain some of the ablest artisans and most heroic characters to be met with in any land. Some of the mothers planning for their little shoeless urchins are amongst the most honest and industrious of their sex, veritable saints though uncanonised! For these there is no work. The market is glutted. The thousands pouring in from the deserted villages and small towns congest our large centres till these latter become wide cesspools of poverty; though it is quite true, in the irony of fate, that the well-fed portion glory in their ever extending city-acres and ever-increasing population.

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The true remedy for such a sad condition is not to be found in charity organisations, however good their intentions and administration; nor in relief works started by Corporations which, though excellent stop-gaps, can only be temporary; nor in mere philanthropy, which, noble as it is, only touches the surface wounds; nor in great unions which lay heavy taxation upon the inhabitants, but absorb the receipts in large expensive buildings and clerical salaries, and dole out to the most deserving [page 65] poor, needy, and aged a most miserable pittance; nor in emigration, which only gathers into its net the most robust, energetic, and aspiring youth of the nation. These are poor panaceas for an evil that has struck the whole nation, and which is sucking the life-blood from its heart. They are surely poor pharmaceutical plasters which at best do nothing more than lessen the pain for the day, without getting at the disease, and eradicating it ! No; the true remedy lies before us. The evil is of long standing, and may take time to remove; but the way to true national prosperity is the highway to rid the nation of this putrifying sore. It is by a return to Nature in our manner of living ! That is the first, the most important step. As Bishop Butler said in his "Analogy of Religion," Nature herself is a great Mediator, a great Healer, if we will only follow her counsels and apply her medicines. And it is to Nature we must look; it is the laws of Nature we must obey— for they are the laws of God ; it is to the service of Nature we must once more turn to find that Tree whose leaves have virtue to heal even the physical disorders of a nation.

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The Economists tell us what can be done with land. They have demonstrated that there is sufficient land in this country to support a population of at least 80,000,000 persons, and that without receiving any help from abroad. They assure us that the land will produce sufficient milk and cheese, the various grains and pulses, nuts and fruits of all descriptions to give the whole 80,000,000 abundant nourishment ; so that for our present population of less [page 66] than 40,000,000 there would be superabundance for all. They have demonstrated that the land now used for pasturage if put under plough and spade for cereals, pulses, nuts and fruits, would give employment to, at least, twenty times as many men and women; that for every one now employed where there is grazing, there would be twenty if natural diet took the place of flesh. They also, by means of tables of comparison, show us that we can live a more truly healthy life, and possess more energy for service both in body and mind, by living upon the pure simple fruits of the Earth. And they prove, in addition to all this, that a working man can support his family on considerable less money even with fruits and vegetables at their present cost; and that, if we all returned to this natural diet, the cost would be still less, as the demand would increase the supply.

Surely, these are cogent reasons for the adoption of non-flesh foods ! If we view the subject only from the standpoint of personal, social, and national economics, leaving out entirely the humane, moral, and religious arguments, the true patriot will not fail to see the unspeakable advantages that would accrue by such a regeneration of the habits of the people. And though to some it may seem utopian, yet we shall at last be driven to it by overwhelming circumstances, if not by wisdom and moral suasion, or we shall die as a nation—as all nations have done who drove their peasantry from the land to starve, and sink into worse than poverty in the towns and cities. If my readers doubt this assertion I counsel them to study the comparative history of nations, [page 67] and, as a foundation, let them consult the immortal history of " The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," by Gibbon.

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The further economic considerations I must leave for my next article. They will embrace the physical, intellectual, and religious advantages to be gained from a return to natural foods. In them is involved the solution of the Temperance problem. I would, however, commend to you, my readers, a most serious consideration of the economic question as I have here presented it; and especially would I appeal to the enlightened conscience of the Christian men and women who fill our Churches. Ministers preach of the Coming Paradise of God, and the congregations lustily sing of it; but it is a piece of sheer nonsense to do either the one or the other in the face of the awful distress which confronts us, and which can be traced back to our erroneous customs in diet, and our misuse of the land God gave the nation to live upon—especially so when we ourselves are doing nothing either by personal example or by service to our community to right the wrong. The earth will never come under the benign regnancy of the Master of our Faith whilst it continues in its present conditions, though we may for ever sing, preach, and dream of the "Coming Paradise"

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This the poet Shelley saw in his moments of spiritual vision, and he often expressed a more genuine belief in the power of goodness than many who think themselves [page 68] more Christian than he was. In his "Laon and Cythna," better known as the "Revolt of Islam," he pictures the emancipated Nation

My brethren, we are free ! the fruits are glowing
Beneath the stars, and the night winds are flowing
O'er the ripe corn, the birds and beasts are dreaming
Never again may blood of bird or beast
Stain with its venomous steam a human feast,
To the pure skies in accusation streaming,
Avenging poisons shall have ceased

To feed disease and fear and madness,
The dwellers of the earth and air
Shall throng around our steps in gladness
Seeking their food or refuge there.

Our toil from thought all glorious forms shall cull,
To make this earth, our home, more beautiful,
And Science, and her sister Poesy,
Shall clothe in light the fields and cities of the free."

(Canto V., li.. 5.)

This is what we want our Nation to become, what we Food Reformers labour for, the Ideal State lying beyond all the efforts made by our distinguished " Order of the Cross," the realisation of which can come to us only by our return to Nature. Then will it be said of Man—

This is what we want our Nation to become, what we Food Reformers labour for, the Ideal State lying beyond all the efforts made by our distinguished "Order of the Cross," the realisation of which can come to us only by our return to Nature. Then will it be said of Man—

"No longer now
He slays the lamb that looks him in the face,
And horribly devours his mangled flesh,
Which, still avenging nature's broken law,
Kindled all putrid humours in his frame,
All evil passions, and all vain belief,
Hatred, despair, and loathing in his mind,
The germs of misery, death, disease, and crime.
No longer now the winged habitants,
That in the woods their sweet lives sing away,
Flee from the form of man ; but gather round,
And prune their sunny feathers on the hands

[page 69] Which little children stretch in friendly sport
Towards these dreadless partners of their play.

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O happy Earth 1 Reality of Heaven
To which these restless souls that ceaselessly
Throng through the human universe, aspire !
Thou consummation of all mortal hope !"

("Queen Mab," viii. and ix.)