[PDF Download] Law localism and the constitution a comparative perspective 1st edition stanton john
Stanton John
Visit to download the full and correct content document: https://textbookfull.com/product/law-localism-and-the-constitution-a-comparative-pers pective-1st-edition-stanton-john/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant download maybe you interests ...
New Directions of STEM Research and Learning in the World Ranking Movement: A Comparative Perspective John N. Hawkins
Reconsidering Constitutional Formation I National Sovereignty A Comparative Analysis of the Juridification by Constitution 1st Edition Ulrike Müßig (Eds.)
Local government affects us all. Wherever we live, in towns, cities, villages, or the smallest of communities, there are locally elected councils tasked with representing people’s interests in the running of the local area. This involves, inter alia, providing public services, maintaining local spaces, and acting as a level of democratic governance within the broader constitutional and executive structure of the state. To fulfl these responsibilities, though, local government must be democratically legitimate; it must have at its disposal reasonable means and resources to function; and it must enjoy a healthy and balanced relationship with centralised government.
This book explores and analyses the extent to which local government in the different parts of the United Kingdom is able to function effectively and democratically. It draws from local councillors’ views in analysing the state of local government under the current constitutional and governmental arrangements, discussing issues such as councils’ relationships with central government; citizen engagement; fnance and public services; and the impact of recent reforms. It contrasts and compares the different approaches adopted in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, also setting out and discussing possible reforms of local government across the United Kingdom. While the focus is on the United Kingdom, the work includes a comparison with other relevant jurisdictions.
John Stanton is a Senior Lecturer in Law at City, University of London, UK. He lectures on constitutional law and comparative constitutional law and is the co-author of a leading public law textbook. John’s frst monograph – Democratic Sustainability in a New Era of Localism was published by Routledge in 2014. John is regularly invited to speak internationally on local government, democracy, and devolution, and was recently asked to give oral evidence to the parliamentary Select Committee on Housing, Communities, and Local Government. John is also interested in the Constitution of Malta.
Routledge Research in Constitutional Law
This series features thought-provoking and original scholarship on constitutional law and theory. Books explore key topics, themes and questions in the feld with a particular emphasis on comparative studies. Where relevant, titles will engage with political and social theory, philosophy and history in order to offer a rounded analysis of constitutions and constitutional law. Series Editor: David Marrani
Available titles in this series include:
Kant, Global Politics and Cosmopolitan Law
The World Republic as a Regulative Idea of Reason
Claudio Corradetti
Diversity of Law in the United Arab Emirates
Privacy, Security and the Legal System
Kristin Kamøy
Sovereignty, Civic Participation, and Constitutional Law
The People versus the Nation in Belgium
Edited by Brecht Deseure, Raf Geenens and Stefan Sottiaux
Law and the Philosophy of Language
The Ordinariness of Law
Pascal Richard
Human Rights Defenders and the Law
A Constitutional and International Legal Approach
Núria Saura-Freixes
Law, Localism and the Constitution
A Comparative Perspective
John Stanton
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ Routledge-Research-in-Constitutional-Law/book-series/CONSTLAW
Law, Localism, and the Constitution
A Comparative Perspective
John Stanton
First published 2023 by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge
The right of John Stanton to be identifed as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifcation and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Stanton, John (Law teacher), author.
Title: Law, localism and the constitution: a comparative perspective/ John Stanton.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2023. |
Series: Routledge research in constitutional law | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Contents: Introduction–A legal and constitutional history of local government–Local government, subsidiarity, and the Constitution–Councils, councillors, and mayors–Local elections and citizen engagement–Local government fnance–Relations between central, devolved, and local government–A new constitutional settlement for local government. | Identifers: LCCN 2022047409 (print) | LCCN 2022047410 (ebook) | ISBN 9781138387546 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032442969 (paperback) | ISBN 9780429426216 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Local government–Law and legislation–Great Britain. Classifcation: LCC KD4759 .S73 2023 (print) | LCC KD4759 (ebook) | DDC 342.4109–dc23/eng/20230103
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022047409
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022047410
ISBN: 978-1-138-38754-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-44296-9 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-42621-6 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9780429426216
Typeset in Galliard by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
To William and Ollie
8 A new constitutional settlement for local government 263
Appendices: The surveys and the councils 287
Appendix A: Survey 1 – Localism across the UK and Ireland: examining central-local relations 289
Appendix B: List of councils for survey 1 294
Appendix C: Survey 2: Law, Localism, and the Constitution 297
Appendix D: List of councils for survey 2 302
Index 305
Acknowledgements
There are a large number of people without whom this book would not have been possible. In particular, there are so many friends and colleagues who shared their expertise during the project – some through providing comments on presented papers, some through felding some of my obscure questions, and others through reading and commenting on whole chapters. I am indebted, in this regard, to: Mary Bigwood, Ashley Bowes, Stephen Bailey, Mark Elliott, Michael Gordon, Justin Griggs, Lizzy Holsgrove, Dan Kolinsky, Martin Loughlin, Ian Loveland, Ann Lyon, Aileen McHarg, Craig Prescott, Scott Stephenson, and Cassandra Wiener. Special thanks are due to Chris Himsworth who, in the fnal weeks before submission, diligently read multiple chapters and provided comments on various aspects of the book. Thanks are due also to Matthew Humphreys, who, as my PhD supervisor, inspired and encouraged me in my initial interest in local government.
At The City Law School, I was lucky enough to receive funding for two research assistants during the writing process, and I was even more lucky in the individuals who flled the posts. Ed Armitage carried out initial literature reviews and helped in the dissemination of the surveys, whilst Jack Barber did some fantastic work collating data from the second survey, also assisting with the focus of and research for Chapter 8. I am also grateful to the team at Routledge for their support: Alison Kirk for accepting my constant revisions to the delivery date, Anna Gallagher for her editorial assistance, and Dr David Marrani for permitting this book to form a part of the Routledge Research in Constitutional Law series.
Finally, my family. My wife, Theresa, has been a rock. I could not have written the book without her support, love, and understanding, and I am eternally grateful for all that she has to put up with. My sons, William and Ollie, have also been an immense source of joy, love, distraction, and motivation throughout the writing process. This book is dedicated to the both of them.
Dr John Stanton London
Part I
History, law, and constitutional foundation
1 Introduction
1.1 Introducing local government
Local government is constituted by “governmental organs having jurisdiction not over the whole of a country but over specifc portions of it”.1 Citizens across all parts of the United Kingdom2 are subject to the jurisdiction and administration of a local council, and all eligible voters3 have the opportunity to elect it to offce. Though the policies, politics, and activities of central government are generally more prominent or newsworthy, it is local authorities that are typically responsible for the decisions and activities that shape and contribute to a large part of our everyday lives. In this vein, it can be said:
local government is multi-purpose: every local authority has many jobs to do and a variety of services to provide. An individual local authority may be responsible for the provision of schools, homes for the elderly and training centres for the handicapped; fre services; road building and maintenance, and traffc management; and the control of the environment through the regulation of building and land development.4
Though this list is by no means exhaustive, it gives insight into the way in which councils exist “to provide a range of specifed services and represent the general interests of a specifc area”.5 This representation of a locality’s interests is established upon a democratic foundation. Councils are not only subject to frequent
1 Sir Ivor Jennings, Principles of Local Government Law (University of London Press Ltd, 4th edn, 1960), 1.
2 Hereinafter UK.
3 The most prominent requirement for voter eligibility is age. In England and Northern Ireland, citizens must be 18 years old to participate in local elections, whilst in Scotland and Wales they must be 16 years old. See s 2, Representation of the People Act 1983, where further qualifcation requirements are listed. Also see s 1, Scottish Elections (Reduction of Voting Age) Act 2015; s 2, Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021.
4 Tony Byrne, Local Government in Britain (Penguin Books, 5th edn, 1990), 2.
5 J.A. Chandler, Local Government Today (Manchester University Press, 2009), 1.
4
History, law, and constitutional foundation and regular elections, but they also hold occasional referendums,6 giving local citizens the opportunity both to elect their council and contribute to its most important decisions and policies. These democratic mechanisms are valuable insofar as they provide “an additional layer of democracy, political representation and engagement to Parliamentary politics, and … allow for the diversity of political views and opinions expressed by communities to fnd outlet in an authoritative and elected body”.7
Local government, however, does not exist in isolation from other levels of government but forms part of the UK’s broader constitutional landscape. The system is uncodifed,8 and in the absence of a single, supreme constitutional text, Parliament is the highest source of power and is traditionally regarded as legally sovereign.9 This being so, there are also legislative institutions operating in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, that, under the authority of powers derived from the Westminster Parliament, have the ability to pass laws for their respective nations10 in certain defned felds.11 These legislatures are not sovereign and remain at the legal mercy of the UK Parliament, but their relationship with Westminster is regulated by the operation of legal and political rules that serve to protect the devolved institutions without eroding the sovereignty of Parliament.12 Within these arrangements, local government is a matter devolved
6 Councils have the power to hold referendums on a range of issues. These include, in England and Wales, proposed increases in council tax (see s 52ZG, Local Government Finance Act 1992); and proposed changes to governance arrangements (in certain circumstances) (see s 9M, Local Government Act 2000). In Scotland, councils can hold referendums, inter alia, in advance of setting up road user changing schemes (see s 52(1), Transport (Scotland) Act 2001).
7 Colin Copus, Mark Roberts, and Rachel Wall, Local Government in England: Centralisation, Autonomy and Control (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 7.
8 The UK does not have a codifed constitutional document. Its constitution is set out in a range of legal and non-legal sources. For further discussion see Anthony King, The British Constitution (Oxford University Press, 2007); Peter Leyland, The Constitution of the United Kingdom: A Contextual Analysis (Hart Publishing, 4th edn, 2021).
9 See A.V. Dicey, Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution (frst published 1885, J.W.F. Allison ed, Oxford University Press, 2013), 27–49. For further discussion, also see Michael Gordon, Parliamentary Sovereignty in the UK Constitution: Process, Politics and Democracy (Hart Publishing, 2015).
10 It is recognised that England, Scotland, and Wales can properly be called “nations”, whilst Northern Ireland might more accurately be called a “territory”. For ease, the term “nations” is adopted throughout the book when referring to all, or any, of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland as a collective.
11 The Acts giving effect to devolution stipulate that certain matters are reserved for Westminster and that only the UK Parliament can pass laws in their regard. Anything not so listed as a reserved matter is presumed to be devolved to the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Senedd, and Northern Ireland Assembly respectively (see s 29(2) and sch 5, Scotland Act 1998; s 6(2) and schs 2 and 3, Northern Ireland Act 1998; s 108A and sch 7A, Government of Wales Act 1998).
12 The reserved powers model (see ibid.) prevents the devolved institutions from erring into matters reserved for Westminster, whilst the Sewel Convention is a political rule stating that
to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland; in the absence of an institution specifcally for England, the UK Parliament retains authority over local government in England. Local councils across the UK are thus dependent on their respective legislatures for the full extent of their powers and responsibilities, with ultimate power lying with the UK Parliament. These legislatures determine the scope of matters that fall within the remit of their respective governments, and it can grant to these whatever statutory powers it deems appropriate, within the realm of devolved matters. The administrations at Westminster, Edinburgh, Cardiff, and Belfast, therefore, are empowered by legislation to make decisions and exercise responsibility over the councils in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland respectively. On this basis, central or devolved governments are legally superior to local government.
1.2 Aims, outline, and methodology
This book provides an historical, empirical, and comparative examination of local government in the UK from a constitutional law perspective. It is predicated on the belief that local government’s constitutional position, and the relationship it shares with central and devolved governments, has had a negative impact on the operation of local government. As the book will show, a culture of centralism pervades every aspect of local government activity. Councils are often expected to function within models decreed by higher authority, to exercise their powers in a centrally prescribed fashion, and with resources that are greatly limited by centralised and devolved governments. In testing the stated hypothesis, this book offers a comparative analysis of local government, contrasting arrangements, and practices across the four constituent nations of the UK. It aims to show how the constitutional realities of the central/devolved-local relationships have affected four particular aspects of local government: organisational structure, internal executive arrangements, democratic foundation and legitimacy, and councils’ fnancial resources. Though there are myriad ways in which centralised authority impacts upon the day-to-day workings of local government, these four areas are fundamental, as they constitute the building blocks of effective local governance and democracy, providing the framework within which local decisions and policies can be made, the basis upon which local people can input into the system, and the means through which councils are able to fund their core activities. On
Parliament will not legislate for Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland in devolved matters, without their consent. These mechanisms are discussed further in Section 1.2.2., below. On the strength of these aspects of the devolution arrangements, it is often suggested that the UK has moved towards a quasi-federal system. For further discussion on the UK’s arrangements in the context of federalism, see Robert Schütze, “Introduction: British ‘federalism’?” in Robert Schütze and Stephen Tierney (eds.), The United Kingdom and the Federal Idea (Hart Publishing, 2018), 1. The term “quasi-federal” is used in the context of early discussions on devolution in the 1970s by Vile (M.J.C. Vile, “Federal Theory and the ‘New Federalism’” (1977) 12 Politics 1.
the strength of this examination, the book offers thoughts on how the constitutional position of local government might be adjusted, creating a more balanced relationship with central and devolved governments.
The book is divided into three parts. The frst places local government within its historical, legal, and constitutional context. This is important because to understand the nature of local government today, and its interaction with broader features of the UK Constitution, appreciation is needed of the way in which it has emerged, evolved, and developed over the centuries. To this end, Chapter 2 offers a detailed account of the origins of UK local government and the way in which it has developed from pre-Norman manifestations of local administration to present day democratically elected councils. Chapter 3 then explains the constitutional position of local government. This involves consideration of the way in which broader principles of constitutional law interact with local government, as well as a conceptual explanation of its relationship with central and devolved governments. The chapter will show how local government’s position today is directly infuenced by its historical development. Part II of the book explores in detail some of the issues affecting local government, focusing on councils’ organisational structure, internal executive arrangements, democratic foundation and legitimacy, and fnancial resources. It draws from extensive empirical research in examining these issues and in highlighting the extent to which these aspects of local government are dominated by central instruction. Part III of the book then brings together the various fndings and conclusions, discussing and comparing the state of central/devolved-local relations across the various parts of the UK more broadly. It offers suggestions for ways in which such relations might be corrected, and it discusses reforms that would permit local government to enjoy a stronger constitutional position. Central to these proposals is the need for political agreement between the different levels of government, legal recognition of that agreement, and incorporation of the European Charter of Local Self-Government.
From a political science perspective, there is a wealth of literature on localism and local government. This ranges from contributions exploring the work of councillors and other local leaders13 to works focusing on local democracy and engagement;14 and from books discussing particular localities or models of
13 Colin Copus, Leading the localities: Executive mayors in English local governance (Manchester University Press, 2006); Colin Copus, In Defence of Councillors (Manchester University Press, 2016).
14 Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher, Local Elections in Britain (Routledge, 1997); Nirmala Rao, Reviving Local Democracy: New Labour, new politics? (Policy Press, 2000); Hugh Atkinson, Local Democracy, Civic Engagement and Community: From New Labour to the Big Society (Manchester University Press, 2012); Ines Newman, Reclaiming Local Democracy: A progressive future for local government (Policy Press, 2014); Simon Parker, Taking Power Back: Putting People in Charge of Politics (Policy Press, 2015).
Introduction 7 government15 to more general examinations of the area.16 From a legal perspective, there have been far fewer contributions to the feld, particularly in recent years. The publication of fve seminal texts over the past half century constitute the main academic explorations of local government law,17 and whilst others have also offered more focused examinations of the area,18 it remains an under-explored corner of constitutional law. This book, then, makes a notable contribution to a sparsely populated feld and provides an up-to-date analysis of a local government system that has changed immeasurably since many of the existing texts made their own valuable contributions to the feld. In this vein, the book engages with current debates and recent developments, including Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic, the emergence of devolution deals and directly elected mayors in England, the attempted incorporation of the European Charter of Local Self-Government in Scotland, and recent local government reform in Northern Ireland. There are two features of this book, however, that seek to enhance its contribution to the feld. First, its presentation of empirical research, and secondly, its focus on all four nations of the UK.
15 Tony Travers, London’s Boroughs at 50 (Biteback Publishing, 2015); Deyan Sudjic, The Language of Cities (Penguin Books, 2017); Mike Emmerich, Britain’s Cities, Britain’s Future (London Publishing Partnerships, 2017).
16 Arthur Midwinter, Local Government in Scotland: Reform of Decline? (Macmillan Press Ltd, 1995); Derek Birrell and Amanda Hayes, The Local Government System in Northern Ireland (Institute of Public Administration, 1999); J.A. Chandler, Explaining Local Government: Local Government in Britain since 1800 (Manchester University Press, 2007); Janice Morphet, Modern Local Government (Sage Publications Ltd, 2008); J.A. Chandler, Local Government Today (Manchester University Press, 4th edn, 2009); David Wilson and Chris Game, Local Government in the United Kingdom (Palgrave Macmillan, 5th edn, 2011); Simin Davoudi and Ali Madanipour (eds) Reconsidering Localism (Routledge, 2015); Jane Wills, Locating Localism: Statecraft, citizenship and democracy (Policy Press, 2016); Colin Copus, Mark Roberts, and Rachel Wall, Local Government in England: Centralisation, Autonomy and Control (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017); Steve Leach, John Stewart, and George Jones, Centralisation, Devolution and the Future of Local Government in England (Routledge, 2018).
17 Sir Ivor Jennings, Principles of Local Government Law (University of London Press Ltd, 4th edn, 1960); J.A.G. Griffth, Central Departments and Local Authorities (George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1966); Martin Loughlin, Local Government in the Modern State (Sweet & Maxwell, 1986); Martin Loughlin, Legality and Locality: The Role of Law in Central-Local Relations (Oxford University Press, 1996); Ian Leigh, Law, Politics and Local Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2000).
18 John Sharland, A Practical Approach to Local Government Law (Oxford University Press, 2nd edn, 2006); Andrew Arden QC, Christopher Baker, and Jonathan Manning, Local Government Constitutional and Administrative Law (Thomson Sweet & Maxwell, 2nd edn, 2008); Jean McFadden, Local Government Law in Scotland: An Introduction (Tottel Publishing Ltd, 2008); John Stanton, Democratic Sustainability in a New Era of Localism (Routledge, 2014); C.M.G. Himsworth, The European Charter of Local Self-Government (Edinburgh University Press, 2015); C.M.G. Himsworth and C.M. O’Neill, Scotland’s Constitution: Law and Practice (Bloomsbury, 4th edn, 2021), ch 8.
1.2.1
The empirical study
The book presents the fndings of a qualitative empirical study that gathered data through the circulation of surveys to local councillors across the UK. Empirical legal analysis of local government has been done before. Griffth’s Central Departments and Local Authorities presents the fndings of:
a study of the processes of decision-making both within and between those central and local authorities. The method adopted was frst to visit a large number of local authorities … and there to talk to offcers and, to a less extent, to members, and to read minutes and fles. Secondly, we were enabled to talk to civil servants in the departments principally concerned (including regional offces) and in the Treasury, and to look at papers.19
Griffth’s study laid the foundations for a seminal exploration of 1960s’ local government. This study differs from Griffth’s work in three ways, though. First, it provides an updated examination of local government. Secondly, it focuses purely on enquiries to local councillors to the exclusion of those in central departments of government. Thirdly, whilst Griffth’s work was framed by its focus “on a number of major services”,20 this study is concerned less with specifc substantive areas of local government activity and more with the constitutional position of local government and the legal framework within which it operates. Copus’ In Defence of Councillors is a book that also draws from empirical research.21 However, Copus’ text offers political, not legal, analysis of such research, and it also has a different focus, namely the work of local councillors, from this book.
For this study, two surveys were circulated to local councillors in all parts of the UK. The frst survey, circulated between December 2017 and February 2018, asked councillors a range of questions, obtaining their views on local democracy, local government reform, central/devolved-local relations, and issues affecting the day-to-day work of local councils. This empirical exercise took place at the beginning of the project, and councillors’ responses very much shaped the development of the book. The second survey was circulated in January 2021. Questions to councillors at this point were more focused and were shaped by the conclusions that had at that point been reached. Appendices A and C show the two surveys that were circulated.
The surveys were drafted in such a way that tailored the focus of certain questions to the respective councillor, depending on the form of their local council and the part of the UK from which they came. Though every survey enquired as to the same issues and themes, they differed in the sense that they were worded to apply to the specifc locality in question. For example, questions enquiring as to
19 Griffth, Central Departments and Local Authorities, (Note 17), 11.
20 Ibid., 11.
21 Copus, In Defence of Councillors (Note 13).
the state of central/devolved-local relations were asked in respect of the particular centralised institution with authority in that particular nation.22 Self-completion surveys were used, meaning that they were “intended for the respondent[s] to fll out themselves … [providing] a medium for the anonymous expression of beliefs”, perceptions and opinions.23 This expression of beliefs, perceptions, and opinions was further encouraged by the open nature of many of the questions. “Open questions give respondents a greater freedom to answer the question[s] because they answer in a way that suits their interpretation”.24 This meant that “councillors ‘experiences … perceptions, motives and accounts’ inform[ed] … the discussions”.25 Indeed, and in this vein, the emphasis on certain issues in councillors’ responses to the frst survey underpins the focus in Part II of the book, their contributions shaping the discussions there. Though most of the questions were open, a few were also closed, offering simple “yes” or “no” options on a particular matter or asking councillors to select the most pressing issues affecting local government. Closed questions, involving “a list of categories to select from that limits the number of possible answers to be given … makes the analysis quicker … also permit[ting] comparability between people’s answers”.26 Through answering both open and closed questions, therefore, councillors’ responses to the surveys provided a wealth of feedback, input, and perspective on local government in the UK, informing and shaping the analyses that this book presents.
A crucial part of the empirical study, though, was selecting those councillors that would be invited to participate. For both surveys, selections were made to ensure that respondents would provide a cross-section of political control, geographical location, organisational structure, and a balance of urban and rural localities. The resultant list thus contains councils from all corners of the country, in all manner of environments, with all local government models and many local political parties represented.27 For the frst survey, 68 councils were chosen,28 and
22 Questions 5.2–5.6 in the frst survey enquired as to the state of central/devolved-local relations. Councillors in England were asked specifcally about relations between the UK Government and councils; councillors in Scotland were asked about the Scottish Government and councils; and the same in respect of Wales and Northern Ireland for councillors from those nations.
23 Tim May, Social Research: Issues, Methods and Research (Open University Press, 4th edn, 2011), 103.
24 Ibid., 110–111.
25 John Stanton, “Decentralisation and Empowerment under the Coalition Government: An Empirical Study of Local Councils in London” (2015) 9 Journal of Planning and Environment Law 978, 979, citing K. Gerson and R. Horowitz, “Observation and Interviewing: Options and Choices in Qualitative Research” in T. May (ed)., Qualitative Research in Action (Sage Publications, 2002), 199, 221.
26 May, Social Research (Note 23), 111.
27 In England, there are County Councils and District Councils in two-tier areas, Metropolitan District Councils, unitary authorities, and London Borough Councils. In Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, all councils are unitary authorities.
28 The breakdown is: 38 councils in England (excluding London), 11 in London, 7 in Scotland, 6 in Wales, and 6 in Northern Ireland.
10 History, law, and constitutional foundation for the second survey, 49 councils were contacted.29 Taken together, 29 per cent of all councils in the UK were approached,30 though not all were forthcoming with participants. Complete lists of the councils that were contacted for each survey are set out in Appendices B and D respectively. In total, 3,605 councillors were contacted for the frst survey and 2,833 councillors for the second. From this point, however, there was no knowing how many would complete the surveys. As May observes, “once the [surveys had been] … sent out … little control [was had] over [its] … completion”.31 Though it was hoped that at least two or three councillors from each authority would participate, providing a potential balance of views, in reality there was huge disparity in the number of respondents from each council. Some councils are represented by just one response; others by as many as eight responses. Furthermore, there were a few councils that heeded no responses, an alternative council being selected in this instance.32 For the frst survey, 173 responses were completed;33 156 responses were submitted for the second survey. Though only a small percentage of all councillors contacted completed the two surveys (5 per cent and 5.5 per cent respectively), the number of surveys collected is seen as positive, with a total 329 responses providing a rich variety of perspectives, experience, and views on the state of local government in the UK.
The nature of the study, and the way in which surveys were circulated and completed, means that certain limitations must be kept in mind when interpreting and understanding the fndings. First, and due both to the lack of control over the number of the responses and the anonymity of participants, it was not possible to determine whether respondents were local offcials, working within a council’s cabinet or committee executive system,34 or whether they fulflled roles purely as councillors. What is more and keeping in mind the variety in the number of participants, where few councillors responded, there was no way of knowing whether views expressed were in any way representative of councillors generally or whether they were unique to that individual. As Bryman acknowledges, “it is impossible to generalize the fndings because we do not know of what population
29 The breakdown is 29 councils in England (excluding London), 6 in London, 5 in Scotland, 5 in Wales, and 4 in Northern Ireland.
30 See: Mark Sandford, “Local Government in England: Structures” (House of Commons Library Briefng Paper Number 07104, November 2020, House of Commons Library) <https:// commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefngs/sn07104/#fullreport> accessed 22 August 2022.
31 May, Social Research (Note 23), 103.
32 Those councils that gave no responses to the surveys are in italics in Appendices A and C.
33 An additional 20 responses were collected from councils in the Republic of Ireland, which were originally intended for inclusion in the study. Due to the low number of responses, however, these were subsequently excluded from the analysis. Their initial inclusion, however, explains why the numbering for the frst survey goes up to A193 (for further explanation of survey numbering, see Figure 1.1.).
34 Explanation of the cabinet and committee models of local government can be found in Section 4.3.1.
Survey cited:
First survey = A
Second survey = B
Local authority name
Region of the UK
E = England
L = Lo ndon
NI = Northern Ireland
S = Scotland
W = Wales
Survey A001 (Mole Valley DC, E)
Survey number: Surveys are numbered in the order in which they were submitted
Local authority type
CC = Co unty Council
DC = District Council
LBC = London Borough Council
MDC = Metropolitan District Council
UC = Unitary Council
Figure 1.1 Explanation of referencing for the survey responses.
this sample is representative”.35 This being said, and despite the varied levels of participation from councillors, the responses are seen as a valuable contribution to the study since they offer an insight into councillors’ perceptions of the matters raised by the questions, permitting ample “opportunity to investigate” the discussions at issue.36 The various responses, though, must be read with the contrasting participants’ responses in mind. Some councillors offered relatively short and sometimes repetitive answers to the questions; others gave fuller answers, touching on a range of issues. Regardless of the varying length of answers, all responses were central in shaping the study’s analysis. Survey responses are cited and quoted throughout the book; Figure 1.1 illustrates the way in which they are referenced.
1.2.2 Comparative analysis across the UK
The second notable feature of this book’s methodological approach is its comparative analysis. Whilst existing literature – both legal and political – has offered limited comparison of local government across two or three nations of the UK,37 this is the frst study that seeks to include all four in a project that covers a broad scope of constitutional discussion. This focus could be classifed as what Jackson calls a functionalist approach to comparative constitutional law. This involves
35 A. Bryman, Social Research Methods (Oxford University Press, 4th edn, 2012), 201.
37 See, for example, Martin Laffn, “Comparative British Central-Local Relations: Regional Centralism, Governance and Intergovernmental Relations” (2002) 22(1) Public Policy and Administration 74; Victoria Jenkins, “Local Government Reform and Sustainable Development in Wales and Ireland” (2009) 11(1) Environmental Law Review 21.
History, law, and constitutional foundation
examining “how a constitutional institution … actually functions in two or more societies”.38 In this sense, the study identifes local government in the different UK nations and explores the way in which they both differ and share certain features, characteristics, and approaches. “[The] beneft of [this methodological approach] … is the ability to explore how different features of the system may interact with and affect the operation of seemingly similar institutions or doctrines”.39 The context for this comparative element is the devolution settlements established in the late 1990s, which will briefy be explained.
The UK has emerged gradually over the centuries as a result of various conficts, political unions, and compromise.40 Generally, and not without exception, a mark of the union was the imposition of direct rule from Westminster.41 Laws, policies, and decisions for the people of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland were made by the UK Parliament and Government in London.42 That is, however, until the emergence of devolution in the late 1990s.43 Three Acts of Parliament, passed in 1998 and amended on numerous occasions since,44 set out the legal and constitutional framework for devolution to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland respectively. These Acts established elected institutions for each nation, which, over the years, have been endowed with a range of primary
38 Vicki C. Jackson, “Comparative Constitutional Law: Methodologies” in Michel Rosenfeld and András Sajó (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Constitutional Law (Oxford University Press, 2012), 54, 64.
39 Ibid., 64.
40 Wales: Wales was conquered by England in 1282 with the Statute of Wales 1284 and, subsequently, the Act of Union 1536 providing the legal framework for their relationship. Scotland: Though ruled by a single monarch since 1603, Scotland and England became united as a consequence of the Acts of Union 1706–1707. Northern Ireland: Under the Act of Union 1801, Great Britain and the whole of Ireland became united. A growing movement supporting home rule, however, led to revolution and confict in the early 20th century. The Anglo-Irish Treaty 1921 recognised the secession of the Irish Free State – which became the Republic of Ireland. Northern Ireland remained a part of the UK. (See Elizabeth Wicks, The Evolution of a Constitution: Eight Key Moments in British Constitutional History (Hart Publishing, 2006), ch. 2; Linda Colley, Acts of Union and Disunion (Profle Books, 2014), 89–90 and 98; Ann Lyon, Constitutional History of the UK (Routledge, 2nd edn, 2016), 69–70).
41 Between 1921 and 1972, Northern Ireland enjoyed a form of devolution under the Government of Ireland Act 1920. A Northern Ireland Parliament exercised devolved power in the territory, though this was abolished and its powers recentralised to Westminster amid growing political troubles in the 1970s.
42 Institutions in Edinburgh and Dublin were abolished upon the forming of unions in 1707 and 1801 respectively.
43 Labour Prime Ministers Harold Wilson and James Callaghan made an attempt to introduce devolution to Scotland and Wales in the 1970s, however, these efforts failed due to a lack of democratic support. See D.G.T. Williams, “The Commission on the Constitution” (1974) 33(1) Cambridge Law Journal 15.
44 Scotland Act 1998; Government of Wales Act 1998; Northern Ireland Act 1998.
legislative and executive powers.45 These powers have been balanced with those of the UK-wide institutions in a model designed to preserve the sovereignty of Parliament. The Scotland Act 1998, the Northern Ireland Act 1998, and the Government of Wales Act 1998 (as amended) expressly list “reserved matters” on which only the Westminster Parliament can legislate.46 Any matter not so listed and on which the Acts are silent is presumed to be devolved.47 Local government is one of these matters and is, therefore, an area in which the devolved institutions can legislate and make policy, creating the potential for deviation and distinction. Local government in England is the only aspect of localism that remains within the purview of the UK Parliament and Government, there being as yet no England-specifc institutions.48 With local government in the different parts of the UK falling within the remit of different institutions, though, the opportunity is presented for comparative analysis of the way in which local governmental institutions are administered and localities governed between these areas. This is due to a number of varying factors. The different central and devolved governments, for instance, are often controlled by different political parties, which can mean differing approaches to local governance and treatment of councils being underpinned by potentially contrasting political ideologies. The structural organisation of local government across the country also differs greatly. Councils in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are uniformly arranged as unitary authorities, whilst in England, councils operate within a multiplicity of structures. Some areas are unitary, whilst others operate within a twotier structure; distinction is drawn between metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas; combined authorities are a recent development, and London is different from the rest of the country. There are differences, therefore, not only between the different parts of the UK but also between localities in England, enhancing the potential for comparative analysis.
45 Wales did not have the authority to pass primary legislation until the Government of Wales Act 2006 introduced such powers. These powers came into force following a referendum in 2011 pursuant to s 103, Government of Wales Act 2006.
46 In Northern Ireland, the terminology is slightly different. “Reserved matters” refer to those areas “which are reserved for the exclusive competence of the UK Parliament … but which can be transferred to the [Northern Ireland] Assembly by the Secretary of State following a request by the Assembly” (John Stanton and Craig Prescott, Public Law (Oxford University Press, 3rd edn, 2022), 386). An additional category – “excepted matters” – then refers to those areas that are reserved exclusively for Westminster.
47 There is no legal restriction on the UK Parliament’s power to legislate on these devolved matters, but the Sewel Convention – a political measure – recognises that Parliament “will not normally legislate with regard to devolved matters without the consent of the” relevant devolved assembly (s 2, Scotland Act 2016).
48 The only measure of England-specifc power at this level was the work of the Legislative Grand Committee in Parliament. This was an additional part of the UK-wide legislative process between 2015 and 2020 and was composed exclusively of MPs from English constituencies, who had the power to debate, vote on, and potentially veto, laws applying only to England.
Comparison of local government in England with that in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, however, must be mindful of the differing levels of centralised authority with which these various councils interact. Recalling that a central theme throughout this book is examination of central/devolved-local relationships, local government in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland deals most closely with the devolved institutions in Edinburgh, Cardiff, and Belfast, respectively, whilst local government in England has a relationship with UK central government. The comparison, therefore, is not one based on complete equality of relationships; central government has – in certain areas – authority over the whole of the UK whilst governments at the devolved levels exercise a narrower scope of authority across a smaller area. English councils’ relationship with central government, compared to that which councils in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland enjoy with their devolved institutions, makes for an interesting dynamic. This is discussed in more detail in Section 3.3.3.
The methodological approach taken by this book, therefore, is unique. It offers a legal analysis of local government that is informed both by a wealth of empirical data and a comparative perspective that examines how systems differ across the various parts of the UK.
1.3 Concluding remarks
This introductory chapter has laid the foundations for the discussions that follow throughout the book, explaining its aims, origins, structure, and methodology. The broader constitutional and political context in the UK is also an important factor underpinning this study. Devolution has already been briefy explained, and this is a constantly changing feature of the UK’s constitutional tapestry. Recent years have seen increased power and responsibility being devolved and, as the realities of Brexit take effect, there is the potential for further change in the way in which power is dispersed throughout the UK.49 Indeed, the union itself might be said to be at risk of collapse.50 Brexit is itself a notable consideration for local government, with departure from the EU impacting on local government funding, councils’ environmental responsibilities, and the eligibility of persons for local authority housing, to name just three factors.51 Finally, the Covid-19
49 Draft legislation has been published by the Scottish Government that would authorise another referendum on the question of Scottish Independence. In November 2022, however, the UK Supreme Court held that such a Bill was beyond the power of the Scottish Parliament since it pertained to matters reserved for the UK Parliament. See Reference by the Lord Advocate of devolution issues under paragraph 34 of Schedule 6 to the Scotland Act 1998 [2022] UKSC 31.
50 See, for instance, Tom McTague, “How Britain falls apart: a road trip through the ancient past and shaky future of the (dis)United Kingdom” (The Atlantic, 5 January 2022) <www .theatlantic.com/international/archive/2022/01/will-britain-survive/621095/> accessed 22 August 2022.
51 See, for further details, Mark Sandford, “Brexit and Local Government” (House of Commons Library Briefng Paper Number 07664, July 2016, House of Commons Library) <https:// commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefngs/cbp-7664/> accessed 22 August 2022.
pandemic and the UK Government’s response has also impacted negatively upon local councils who emerged from successive lockdowns in a precarious fnancial state owing to a substantial drop in income and an increase in expenditure on health and social care.52 All of these issues were raised in some way by the councillors surveyed as part of the study, and their comments in this regard feature throughout the chapters that follow in helping to clarify councils’ broader constitutional and political role.
Bibliography
Bryman A, Social Research Methods (Oxford University Press, 4th edn, 2012).
Byrne T, Local Government in Britain (Penguin Books, 5th edn, 1990).
Chandler JA, Local Government Today (Manchester University Press, 2009).
Colley L, Acts of Union and Disunion (Profle Books, 2014).
Copus C, In Defence of Councillors (Manchester University Press, 2016).
Copus C, Roberts M, and Wall R, Local Government in England: Centralisation, Autonomy and Control (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).
Dicey AV, Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution (First Published 1885, JWF Allison ed, Oxford University Press, 2013).
Gerson K and Horowitz R, “Observation and Interviewing: Options and Choices in Qualitative Research.” In May T (ed.), Qualitative Research in Action (Sage Publications, 2002), 199.
Gordon M, Parliamentary Sovereignty in the UK Constitution: Process, Politics and Democracy (Hart Publishing, 2015).
Griffth JAG, Central Departments and Local Authorities (George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1966).
Jackson VC, “Comparative Constitutional Law: Methodologies.” In Michel Rosenfeld and András Sajó (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Constitutional Law (Oxford University Press, 2012), 54.
Jenkins V, “Local Government Reform and Sustainable Development in Wales and Ireland” (2009) 11(1) Environmental Law Review 21.
Jennings WI, Principles of Local Government Law (University of London Press Ltd, 4th edn, 1960).
King A, The British Constitution (Oxford University Press, 2007).
Laffn M, “Comparative British Central-Local Relations: Regional Centralism, Governance and Intergovernmental Relations” (2002) 22(1) Public Policy and Administration 74.
Leyland P, The Constitution of the United Kingdom: A Contextual Analysis (Hart Publishing, 4th edn, 2021).
Lyon A, Constitutional History of the UK (Routledge, 2nd edn, 2016).
May T, Social Research: Issues, Methods, and Research (Open University Press, 4th edn, 2011).
52 National Audit Offce, Local government fnance in the pandemic (HC 1240, 3 March 2021) <www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Local-government-fnance-in-the-pandemic.pdf> accessed 27 July 2022.
16 History, law, and constitutional foundation
McTague T, “How Britain Falls Apart: A Road Trip Through the Ancient Past and Shaky Future of the (Dis)United Kingdom” (The Atlantic, 5 January 2022) < https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2022/01/will-britain -survive/621095/> accessed 22 August 2022.
National Audit Offce, “Local Government Finance in the Pandemic” (HC 1240, 3 March 2021) <https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Local -government-fnance-in-the-pandemic.pdf> accessed 27 July 2022.
Sandford M, “Brexit and Local Government” (House of Commons Library Briefng Paper Number 07664, July 2016, House of Commons Library) <https:// commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefngs/cbp-7664/> accessed 22 August 2022.
Sandford M, “Local Government in England: Structures” (House of Commons Library Briefng Paper Number 07104, November 2020, House of Commons Library) <https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefngs/sn07104/ #fullreport> accessed 22 August 2022.
Schütze R, “Introduction: British “Federalism”?” In Schütze R and Tierney S (eds.), The United Kingdom and the Federal Idea (Hart Publishing, 2018).
Stanton J and Prescott C, Public Law (Oxford University Press, 3rd edn, 2022).
Vile MJC, “Federal Theory and the “New Federalism”” (1977) 12 Politics 1.
Wicks E, The Evolution of a Constitution: Eight Key Moments in British Constitutional History (Hart Publishing, 2006).
Williams DGT, “The Commission on the Constitution” (1974) 33(1) Cambridge Law Journal 15.
2 A legal and constitutional history of local government
2.1 Introduction
The origins of local government in the UK can be traced back to the Middle Ages, with certain features of local administration put in place following the Norman Conquest remaining in operation into the 19th century. Understanding the role and position of local government in the UK Constitution requires appreciation of the way in which it has evolved over the centuries into the democratically founded system in place today. On this basis, this chapter provides a detailed account of local government’s constitutional history. It discusses the forms of local administration in operation both before and after the Norman Conquest and maps out the evolution of these models through to the 19th century. The chapter then examines the emergence of the modern system of local government through various legislative enactments in the 19th century and explores how this developed further through to the present day. In so doing, the chapter identifes institutions of local government in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland and, to this extent, is mindful of the devolution settlements and the impact that devolution has had on the diverse nature of local government across the country. London is also separated from the rest of England due to its unique governmental arrangements.
2.2 Local government pre-1833
The year 1833 is a key one for local government in the UK. The year before had seen the passing of the Great Reform Act 1932, which substantially increased the franchise upon which the House of Commons was elected and triggered a gradual process of increasing democratisation that would continue for the next hundred years.1 This process was in part mirrored at the local level, too. Reforms
1 See Anthony H. Birch, The British System of Government (Routledge, 10th edn, 1998), 30; Elizabeth Wicks, The Evolution of a Constitution (Hart Publishing, 2006), 67. The 1832 Act “added 217,000 voters to an electorate of 435,000 in England and Wales”, whilst the Representation of the People Act 1867 increased the franchise further, introducing “general household suffrage” and adding “938,000 voters to an electorate of 1,056,000 in England
DOI: 10.4324/9780429426216-3
18 History, law, and constitutional foundation
in the years after 1832 saw signifcant structural and democratic reform to the institutions of local government right across the UK, with the emergence of uniform approaches to service provision, uniform models of local governance and the gradual introduction of democratically elected councils.2 The Burghs and Police (Scotland) Act 1833 was the frst signifcant enactment as part of this trend, with the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, and the Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Act 1840 following suit in other parts of the country. These Acts are discussed below. For now, though, the chapter begins with a brief account of local administration’s origins in each part of the country.
2.2.1 England and London
In England, local government long predates the establishment of central government.3 Whilst “[c]entral administration … was the creation of the Normans … local administration, which ‘was probably the unconscious adaptation of primeval Teutonic custom to the conditions of new settlement’, was at least fve hundred years older”.4 Though there had been a measure of local administration in Roman Britain, it is the arrangements set out by the Anglo-Saxons that are here regarded as providing the origins of English local government. At the local level, Anglo-Saxon England was a patchwork of different administrative divisions. Shires operated at the county level and were administered through the shire moot and overseen by “ealdormen and sheriffs”.5 Shires were subdivided into hundreds,6 “wapentakes, wards, lathes [or] … rapes”,7 depending on the and Wales” (E.L. Woodward, The Age of Reform 1815–1870 (Oxford University Press, 1938), 84, and 179–180).
2 See Ian Leigh, Law, Politics, and Local Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2000), 5.
3 See Martin Loughlin, Legality and Locality: The Role of Law in Central-Local Relations (Oxford University Press, 1996), 11.
4 Ibid., 11, citing E. Jenks, An Outline of English Local Government (London 5th edn, 1921), 9. Also see J.A. Chandler, Explaining Local Government: Local Government in Britain since 1800 (Manchester University Press, 2007), 1.
5 Sir Ivor Jennings, Principles of Local Government Law (University of London Press Ltd, 4th edn, 1960), 19. The shire moot “was a court of justice and to some extent also a governmental assembly for the shire” (F.W. Maitland, The Constitutional History of England (H.A.L. Fisher (ed.), Cambridge University Press, 1908, reprinted 1968), 39). See, for further discussion on shires, Peter Hunter Blair, A History of England: Anglo-Saxon England (The Folio Society, 1997), 212–216.
6 Hundreds were so called because they were made up of “the land area suffcient to sustain roughly 100 households” (David Wilson and Chris Game, Local Government in the United Kingdom (Palgrave Macmillan, 5th edn, 2011), 54).
7 See Chandler, Explaining Local Government, (Note 4), 1, citing S. Webb and B. Webb, English Local Government, 10 vols, vol. 1: The Parish and the County (Longmans, 1906), 284; A Williams, Kingship and Government in Pre-Conquest England (Macmillan, 1999), 88. Also see Blair, A History of England, (Note 5), 220–231.
Another random document with no related content on Scribd:
people at large, Mr Gregg indicates by his statement of what advantages they possess who have come to Graniteville.
“When they were first brought together, the seventy-nine out of a hundred grown girls who could neither read nor write were a by-word around the country; that reproach has long since been removed. We have night, Sunday, and week-day schools. Singing-masters, music-teachers, writing-masters, and itinerant lecturers all find patronage in Graniteville where the people can easily earn all the necessaries of life, and are in the enjoyment of the usual luxuries of country life.” * * *
“To get a steady supply of workmen, a population must be collected which will regard themselves as a community; and two essential elements are necessary to the building up, moral growth, and stability of such a collection of people, namely, a church and a school-house.” * * *
“I can safely say that it is only necessary to make comfortable homes in order to procure families, that will afford labourers of the best kind. A large manufacturing establishment located anywhere in the State, away from a town and in a healthy situation, will soon collect around it a population who, however poor, with proper moral restraints thrown around them, will soon develope all the elements of good society. Self-respect and attachment to the place will soon find their way into the minds of such, while intelligence, morality, and well directed industry, will not fail to acquire position.”
What the poor people of Edgefield, Barnwell, and Lexington districts needed was, in the first place, to be led “to regard themselves as a community;” for this purpose the nuclei of “a church and a schoolhouse” are declared to be essential, to which must be added, such other stimulants to improvement as “singing and writing schools, itinerant lecturers,” etc., etc. In short, the power of obtaining, as the result of their labour, “the necessaries of life,” “the usual luxuries of country life,” or, in two words, which cover and
include church, school, music and lecture, as well as bread, cleanliness, luxuries and necessities, “comfortable homes.” It was simply by making possible to them what before had not been possible, the essential conditions of a comfortable civilized home, that Mr. Gregg was enabled in a few years to announce, as he did, that, “from extreme poverty and want, they have become a thrifty, happy, and contented people.”
The present system of American slavery, notwithstanding the enormous advantages of wealth which the cotton monopoly is supposed to offer, prevents the people at large from having “comfortable homes,” in the sense intended by Mr. Gregg. For ninetenths of the citizens, comfortable homes, as the words would be understood by the mass of citizens of the North and of England, as well as by Mr. Gregg, are, under present arrangements, out of the question.
Examine almost any rural district of the South, study its history, and this will be as evident as it was to Mr. Gregg in the case of those to which his attention was especially called. These, to be sure, contained, probably, a large proportion of very poor soil. But how is it in a district of entirely rich soil? Suppose it to be of twenty square miles, with a population of six hundred, all told, and with an ordinarily convenient access by river navigation to market. The whole of the available cotton land in this case will probably be owned by three or four men, and on these men the demand for cotton will have had, let us suppose, its full effect. Their tillage land will be comparatively well cultivated. Their houses will be comfortable, their furniture and their food luxurious. They will, moreover, not only have secured the best land on which to apply their labour, but the best brute force, the best tools, and the best machinery for ginning and pressing, all superintended by the best class of overseers. The cotton of each will be shipped at the best season, perhaps all at once, on a boat, or by trains expressly engaged at the lowest rates of freight. It will everywhere receive special attention and care, because it forms together a parcel of great value. The merchants will watch the markets closely to get the best prices for it, and when sold the cash returns to each proprietor will be enormously large. As the expenses
of raising and marketing cotton are in inverse ratio to the number of hands employed, planters nearly always immediately reinvest their surplus funds in slaves; and as there is a sufficient number of large capitalists engaged in cotton-growing to make a strong competition for the limited number of slaves which the breeding States can supply, it is evident that the price of a slave will always be as high as the product of his labour, under the best management, on the most valuable land, and with every economical advantage which money can procure, will warrant.
But suppose that there are in the district besides these three or four large planters, their families and their slaves, a certain number of whites who do not own slaves. The fact of their being nonslaveholders is evidence that they are as yet without capital, in this case one of two tendencies must soon be developed. Either being stimulated by the high price of cotton they will grow industrious, will accumulate capital and purchase slaves, and owning slaves will require a larger amount of land upon which to work them than they require for their own labour alone, thus being led to buy out one of the other planters, or to move elsewhere themselves before they have acquired an established improvement of character from their prosperity; or, secondly, they will not purchase slaves, but either expend currently for their own comfort, or hoard the results of their labour. If they hoard they will acquire no increase of comfort or improvement of character on account of the demand. If they spend all their earnings, these will not be sufficient, however profitable their cotton culture may be supposed, to purchase luxuries much superior to those furnished to the slaves of the planters, because the local demand, being limited to some fifty white families, in the whole district of twenty square miles, is not enough to draw luxuries to the neighbourhood, unless they are brought by special order, and at great expense from the nearest shipping port. Nor is it possible for such a small number of whites to maintain a church or a newspaper, nor yet a school, unless it is one established by a planter, or two or three planters, and really of a private and very expensive character. Suppose, again, another district in which either the land is generally less productive or the market less easy of access than in the last, or
that both is the case. The stimulus of the cotton demand is, of course, proportionately lessened. In this case, equally with the last, the richest soils, and those most convenient to the river or the railroad, if there happens to be much choice in this respect, will assuredly be possessed by the largest capitalists, that is, the largest slaveholders, who may nevertheless be men of but moderate wealth and limited information. If so, their standard of comfort will yet be low, and their demand will consequently take effect very slowly in increasing the means of comfort, and rendering facilities for obtaining instruction more accessible to their neighbours. But suppose, notwithstanding the disadvantages of the district in its distance from market, that their sales of cotton, the sole export of the district, are very profitable, and that the demand for cotton is constantly increasing. A similar condition with regard to the chief export of a free labour community would inevitably tend to foster the intelligence and industry of a large number of people. It has this effect with only a very limited number of the inhabitants of a plantation district consisting in large part as they must of slaves. These labourers may be driven to work harder, and may be furnished with better tools for the purpose of increasing the value of cotton which is to be exchanged for the luxuries which the planter is learning to demand for himself, but it is for himself and for his family alone that these luxuries will be demanded. The wages—or means of demanding home comfort—of the workmen are not at all influenced by the cotton demand: the effect, therefore, in enlarging and cheapening the local supply of the means of home comfort will be almost inappreciable, while the impulse generated in the planter’s mind is almost wholly directed toward increasing the cotton crop through the labour of his slaves alone. His demand upon the whites of the district is not materially enlarged in any way. The slave population of the district will be increased in number, and its labour more energetically directed, and soon the planters will find the soil they possess growing less productive from their increasing drafts upon it. There is plenty of rich unoccupied land to be had for a dollar an acre a few hundred miles to the West, still it is no trifling matter to move all the stock, human, equine, and bovine, and all the implements and machinery of a large plantation. Hence, at the same
time, perhaps, with an importation from Virginia of purchased slaves, there will be an active demand among the slaveholders for all the remaining land in the district on which cotton can be profitably grown. Then sooner or later, and with a rapidity proportionate to the effect of the cotton demand, the white population of the district divides, one part, consisting of a few slaveholders, obtains possession of all the valuable cotton land, and monopolizes for a few white families all the advantages of the cotton demand. A second part removes with its slaves, if it possess any, from the district, while a third continues to occupy the sand hills, or sometimes perhaps takes possession of the exhausted land which has been vacated by the large planters, because they, with all their superior skill and advantages of capital, could not cultivate it longer with profit.[56]
The population of the district, then, will consist of the large landowners and slaveowners, who are now so few in number as to be unnoticeable either as producers or consumers; of their slaves, who are producers but not consumers (to any important extent), and of this forlorn hope of poor whites, who are, in the eyes of the commercial world, neither producers nor consumers. The contemplation from a distance of their condition, is a part of the price which is paid by those who hold slavery to be justifiable on the ground that it maintains a race of gentlemen. Some occasionally flinch for a moment, in observing it, and vainly urge that something should be done to render it less appalling. Touching their ignorance, for instance, said Governor Seabrooke of South Carolina, addressing the Legislature of that State, years ago:—
“Education has been provided by the Legislature, but for one class of the citizens of the State, which is the wealthy class. For the middle and poorer classes of society it has done nothing, since no organized system has been adopted for that purpose. You have appropriated seventyfive thousand dollars annually to free schools; but, under the present mode of applying it, that liberality is really the profusion of the prodigal, rather than the judicious generosity which confers real benefit. The few who are educated at public expense in those excellent and truly
useful institutions, the Arsenal and Citadel Academies [military schools], form almost the only exception to the truth of this remark. Ten years ago, twenty thousand adults, besides children, were unable to read or write, in South Carolina. Has our free-school system dispelled any of this ignorance? Are there not any reasonable fears to be entertained that the number has increased since that period?”
Since then, Governor Adams, in another message to the South Carolina Legislature, vainly urging the appointment of a superintendent of popular education, said:—
“Make, at least, this effort, and if it results in nothing—if, in consequence of insurmountable difficulties in our condition, no improvement can be made on the present system, and the poor of the land are hopelessly doomed to ignorance, poverty, and crime—you will, at least, feel conscious of having done your duty, and the public anxiety on the subject will be quieted.”
It is not unnatural that there should be some anxiety with at least that portion of the public not accustomed to look at public affairs in the large way of South Carolina legislators, when the travelling agent of a religious tract society can read from his diary in a church in Charleston, such a record as this:—
“Visited sixty families, numbering two hundred and twentyone souls over ten years of age; only twenty-three could read, and seventeen write. Forty-one families destitute of the Bible. Average of their going to church, once in seven years. Several, between thirty and forty-five years old, had heard but one or two sermons in their lives. Some grownup youths had never heard a sermon or prayer, until my visit, and did not know of such a being as the Saviour; and boys and girls, from ten to fifteen years old, did not know who made them. All of one family rushed away when I knelt to pray, to a neighbour’s, begging them to tell what I
meant by it. Other families fell on their faces, instead of kneeling.”[57]
The following is written by a gentleman, “whose name,” says the editor of De Bow’s “Review,” “has long been illustrious for the services he has rendered to the South.”
“All of you must be aware of the condition of the class of people I allude to. What progress have they made in the last hundred years, and what is to be their future condition, unless some mode of employment be devised to improve it? A noble race of people! reduced to a condition but little above the wild Indian of the forest, or the European gipsy, without education, and, in many instances, unable to procure the food necessary to develop the natural man. They seem to be the only class of people in our State who are not disposed to emigrate to other countries, while our wealthy and intelligent citizens are leaving us by scores, taking with them the treasures which have been accumulated by mercantile thrift, as well as by the growth of cotton and the consequent exhaustion of the soil.”
Says Governor Hammond, also of South Carolina, in an address before the South Carolina Institute:—
“According to the best calculations which, in the absence of statistic facts, can be made, it is believed that, of the 300,000 white inhabitants of South Carolina, there are not less than 50,000, whose industry, such as it is, and compensated as it is, is not, in the present condition of things, and does not promise, hereafter, to be, adequate to procure them, honestly, such a support as every white person in this country is and feels himself entitled to.
“Some cannot be said to work at all. They obtain a precarious subsistence by occasional jobs, by hunting, by fishing, sometimes by plundering fields or folds, and, too often, by what is, in its effects, far worse—trading with slaves, and seducing them to plunder for their benefit.”
In another part of the same address, Governor Hammond says, that “$18 or, at the most $19, will cover the whole necessary annual cost of a full supply of wholesome and palatable food, purchased in the market;” meaning, generally, in South Carolina. From a comparison of these two extracts, it will be evident that $19 per annum is high wages for the labour of one-sixth of all the white population of South Carolina—and that one-sixth exclusive of the classes not obliged to labour for their living.
South Carolina affords the fairest example of the tendency of the Southern policy, because it is the oldest cotton State, and because slavery has been longest and most strongly and completely established there. But the same laws are seen in operation leading to the same sure results everywhere. Some carefully compiled statistics of the seaboard district of Georgia will be found in Appendix (D), showing the comparative condition of the people in the rich seaisland counties, and those in their rear, the latter consisting in large proportion of poor or worn-out lands. I recapitulate here the more exact of these statistics:—
Population.—A large majority of the whole white population resides within the barren counties, of which the slave population is less than one-fourteenth that of the aggregate slave population of the whole.
Wealth.—The personal estate of the whites of these upper counties is, on an average, less than one-sixth that of the others.
Education.—As the wealthy are independent of public schools, the means of education are scarcely more available for those who are not rich in one than the other, the school-houses being, on an average, ten and a half miles apart in the less populous, thirteen and three-quarters miles apart in the more populous.
Religion.—It is widely otherwise as to churches. In the planting counties, there is a house of worship for every twenty-nine white families; in the poor white counties, one for every one hundred and sixty-two white families. Notwithstanding the fact, that to accommodate all, the latter should be six times as large, their average value is less than one-tenth that of the others; the one being eight hundred and ninety-eight dollars, the other eighty-nine dollars.
Commerce.—So wholly do the planters, in whose hands is the wealth, depend on their factors for direct supplies from without, the capital invested in trade, in the coast counties, is but thirty-seven and a half cents to each inhabitant, and in the upper counties it is but one dollar and fifty cents. From the remarks on temperance it would seem that the most of this capital must be held in the form of whiskey. One “store” in Liberty county, which I myself entered, contained, so far as I could see, nothing but casks, demijohns, decanters, a box of coffee, a case of tobacco, and some powder and lead; and I believe that nine-tenths of the stock in trade referred to in these statistics is of this character. It was mentioned to me by a gentleman who had examined this district with a commercial purpose, that, off the plantations, there was no money in the country —almost literally, no money. The dealings even of the merchants or tradesmen seemed to be entirely by barter. He believed there were many full-grown men who had never seen so much as a dollar in money in their lives.
The following is a graphic sketch by a native Georgian of the present appearance of what was once the most productive cotton land of the State:—
“The classic hut occupied a lovely spot, overshadowed by majestic hickories, towering poplars, and strong-armed oaks. The little plain on which it stood was terminated, at the distance of about fifty feet from the door, by the brow of a hill, which descended rather abruptly to a noble spring, that gushed joyously forth from among the roots of a stately beech, at its foot. The stream from this fountain scarcely burst into view, before it hid itself in the dark shade of a field of cane, which overspread the dale through which it flowed, and marked its windings, until it turned from sight, among vine-covered hills, at a distance far beyond that to which the eye could have traced it, without the help of its evergreen belt. A remark of the captain’s, as we viewed this lovely country, will give the reader my apology for the minuteness of the foregoing description: ‘These lands,’ said he, ‘will never wear out.
Where they lie level, they will be just as good, fifty years hence, as they are now.’ Forty-two years afterwards, I visited the spot on which he stood when he made the remark. The sun poured his whole strength upon the bald hill which once supported the sequestered school-house; many a deep-washed gully met at a sickly bog, where had gushed the limpid fountain; a dying willow rose from the soil which had nourished the venerable beech; flocks wandered among the dwarf pines, and cropped a scanty meal from the vale where the rich cane had bowed and rustled to every breeze, and all around was barren, dreary, and cheerless.”[58]
I will quote from graver authority: Fenner’s Southern Medical Reports:—
“The native soil of Middle Georgia is a rich argillaceous loam, resting on a firm clay foundation. In some of the richer counties, nearly all the lands have been cut down, and appropriated to tillage; a large maximum of which have been worn out, leaving a desolate picture for the traveller to behold. Decaying tenements, red, old hills, stripped of their native growth and virgin soil, and washed into deep gullies, with here and there patches of Bermuda grass and stunted pine shrubs, struggling for subsistence on what was once one of the richest soils in America.”
Let us go on to Alabama, which was admitted as a State of the Union only so long ago as 1818.
In an address before the Chunnenuggee Horticultural Society, by Hon. C. C. Clay, Jr., reported by the author in De Bow’s “Review,” December, 1815, I find the following passage. I need add not a word to it to show how the political experiment of the Carolinas, and Georgia, is being repeated to the same cursed result in young Alabama. The author, it is fair to say, is devoted to the sustentation of Slavery, and would not, for the world, be suspected of favouring any scheme for arresting this havoc of wealth, further than by chemical science:—
“I can show you, with sorrow, in the older portions of Alabama, and in my native county of Madison, the sad memorials of the artless and exhausting culture of cotton. Our small planters, after taking the cream off their lands, unable to restore them by rest, manures, or otherwise, are going further west and south, in search of other virgin lands, which they may and will despoil and impoverish in like manner. Our wealthier planters, with greater means and no more skill, are buying out their poorer neighbours, extending their plantations, and adding to their slave force. The wealthy few, who are able to live on smaller profits, and to give their blasted fields some rest, are thus pushing off the many, who are merely independent.
“Of the twenty millions of dollars annually realized from the sales of the cotton crop of Alabama, nearly all not expended in supporting the producers is reinvested in land and negroes. Thus the white population has decreased, and the slave increased, almost pari passu in several counties of our State. In 1825, Madison county cast about 3,000 votes; now she cannot cast exceeding 2,300. In traversing that county one will discover numerous farmhouses, once the abode of industrious and intelligent freemen, now occupied by slaves, or tenantless, deserted, and dilapidated; he will observe fields, once fertile, now unfenced, abandoned, and covered with those evil harbingers—fox-tail and broom-sedge; he will see the moss growing on the mouldering walls of once thrifty villages: and will find ‘one only master grasps the whole domain’ that once furnished happy homes for a dozen white families. Indeed, a country in its infancy, where, fifty years ago, scarce a forest tree had been felled by the axe of the pioneer is already exhibiting the painful signs of senility and decay apparent in Virginia and the Carolinas; the freshness of its agricultural glory is gone; the vigour of its youth is extinct, and the spirit of desolation seems brooding over it.”
What inducement has capital in railroads or shops or books or tools to move into districts like this, or which are to become like this? Why, rather, I shall be asked, does it not withdraw more completely? Why do not all, who are able, remove from a region so desolate? Why was not its impoverishment more complete, more simultaneous? How is it that any slaveholders yet remain? The “venerable Edmund Ruffin,” president of the Virginia State Agricultural Society, shall answer:[59]
“The causes are not all in action at once, and in equal progress. The labours of exhausting culture, also, are necessarily suspended as each of the cultivators’ fields is successively worn out. And when tillage so ceases, and any space is thus left at rest, nature immediately goes to work to recruit and replace as much as possible of the wasted fertility, until another destroyer, after many years, shall return, again to waste, and in much shorter time than before, the smaller stock of fertility so renewed. Thus the whole territory, so scourged, is not destroyed at one operation. But though these changes and partial recoveries are continually, to some extent counteracting the labours for destruction, still the latter work is in general progress. It may require (as it did in my native region) more than two hundred years, from the first settlement, to reach the lowest degradation. But that final result is not the less certainly to be produced by the continued action of the causes.”
As to the extent to which the process is carried, Mr. Gregg says:[60]
“I think it would be within bounds to assume that the planting capital withdrawn within that period [the last twenty-five years] would, judiciously applied, have drained every acre of swamp land in South Carolina, besides resuscitating the old, worn-out land, and doubling the crops—thus more than quadrupling the productive power of the agriculture of the State.”
It would be consoling to hope that this planters’ capital in the new region to which it is driven were used to better results. Does the average condition of the people of western Louisiana and Texas, as I have exhibited it to the reader in a former chapter, justify such a hope? When we consider the form in which this capital exists, and the change in the mode of its investment which is accomplished when it is transferred from South Carolina, we perceive why it does not.
If we are told that the value of one hundred thousand dollars has been recently transferred from Massachusetts to a certain young township of Illinois, we reasonably infer that the people of this township will be considerably benefited thereby. We think what an excellent saw mill and grist mill, what an assortment of wares, what a good inn, what a good school, what fine breeding stock, what excellent seeds and fruit trees, what superior machinery and implements, they will be able to obtain there now; and we know that some of these or other sources of profit, convenience, and comfort to a neighbourhood, are almost certain to exist in all capital so transferred. In the capital transferred from South Carolina, there is no such virtue—none of consequence. In a hundred thousand dollars of it there will not be found a single mill, nor a waggon load of “store goods;” it will hardly introduce to the neighbourhood whither it goes a single improvement, convenience, or comfort. At least ninety thousand dollars of it will consist in slaves, and if their owners go with them it is hard to see in what respect their real home comfort is greater
We must admit, it is true, that they are generally better satisfied, else this transfer would not be so unremitting as it is. The motive is the same at the North as at the South, the prospect of a better interest from the capital, and if this did not exist it would not be transferred. Let us suppose that, at starting, the ends of the capitalist are obtained equally in both cases, that a sale of produce is made, bringing in cash twenty thousand dollars; suppose that five thousand dollars of this is used in each case for the home comfort of the owners, and that as much immediate comfort is attainable with it in the one case as in the other. What, then, is done with the fifteen
thousand dollars? At the South, it goes to pay for a farther transfer of slaves purchased in the East, a trifle also for new tools. At the North, nearly all of it will go to improvement of machinery of some kind, machinery of transfer or trade, if not of manufacture, to the improvement of the productive value of whatever the original capital had been invested in, much of it to the remuneration of talent, which is thus enabled to be employed for the benefit of many people other than these capitalists—for the home comfort of many people. If five thousand dollars purchased no more comfort in the one case than the other, at starting, in a few years it will purchase double as much. For the fifteen thousand dollars which has gone East in the one case to pay for more labour, will, in the other, have procured good roads and cheap transportation of comforts, or shops and machinery, and thus the cheap manufacture of comforts on the spot where they are demanded. But they who sell the reinforcement of slaves, and to whom comes the fifteen thousand dollars, do they have no increase of home comfort? Taking into consideration the gradual destruction of all the elements of home comfort which the rearing and holding of those slaves has occasioned in the district from which they are sold, it may be doubtful if, in the end, they do. Whither, then, does this capital go? The money comes to the country from those who buy cotton, and somebody must have a benefit of it. Who? Every one at the South says, when you ask this, it is the Northern merchant, who, in the end, gets it into his own hands, and it is only him and his whom it benefits. Mr. Gregg apparently believes this. He says, after the sentence last quoted from him, describing the transfer of capital to the West from South Carolina:—
“But this is not all. Let us look for a moment at the course of things among our mercantile classes. We shall not have to go much further back than twenty-five years to count up twenty-five millions of capital accumulated in Charleston, and which has left us with its enterprising owners, who have principally located in northern cities. This sum would build factories enough to spin and weave every pound of cotton made in the State, besides making railroads to intersect every portion of the up-country, giving business facilities to the remotest points.”
How comes this capital, the return made by the world for the cotton of the South, to be so largely in the hands of Northern men? The true answer is, that what these get is simply their fair commercial remuneration for the trouble of transporting cotton, transporting money, transporting the total amount of home comfort, little as it is, which the South gets for its cotton, from one part of the country to the other (chiefly cotton to the coast, and goods returned instead of money from the coast to the plantations), and for the enormous risks and advances of capital which are required in dealing with the South. Is this service over paid? If so, why do not the planters transfer capital and energy to it from the plantations? It is not so. Dispersed and costly labour makes the cost of trade or transfer enormous (as it does the cost of cotton producing). It is only when this wealth is transferred to the Free States or to Europe that it gives great results to human comfort and becomes of great value. The South, as a whole, has at present no advantage from cotton, even planters but little. The chief result of the demand for it, as far as they are concerned, is to give a fictitious value to slaves.
Throughout the South-west I found men, who either told me themselves, or of whom it was said by others, that they settled where I found them, ten or fifteen years ago, with scarcely any property beyond half a dozen negroes, who were then indeed heavily in debt, but who were now quite rich men, having from twenty to fifty negroes. Nor is this at all surprising, when it is considered that cotton costs nothing but labour, the value of the land, however rich, being too inconsiderable to be taken into account, and that the price of cotton has doubled in ten years. But in what else beside negroes were these rich men better off than when they called themselves poor? Their real comfort, unless in the sense of security against extreme want, or immunity from the necessity of personal labour to sustain life, could scarcely have been increased in the least. There was, at any rate, the same bacon and corn, the same slough of a waggon channel through the forest, the same bare walls in their dwellings, the same absence of taste and art and literature, the same distance from schools and churches and educated advisers, and—on account of the distance of tolerable mechanics, and the difficulty of moving without destruction, through such a rough
country, anything elaborate or finely finished—the same make-shift furniture. There were, to be sure, ploughs and hoes, and gins and presses, and there were scores of very “likely negroes.” Whoever sold such of these negroes as had been bought must have been the richer, it will be said. But let us see.
The following picture of the condition of Virginia, the great breeding ground of slaves, is drawn by the last governor of that State, Henry A. Wise. It was addressed to a Virginia audience, who testified to its truthfulness.
“You have had no commerce, no mining, no manufactures.
“You have relied alone on the single power of agriculture— and such agriculture! Your sedge-patches outshine the sun. Your inattention to your only source of wealth has scared the very bosom of mother earth. Instead of having to feed cattle on a thousand hills, you have had to chase the stump-tailed steer through the sedge-patches to procure a tough beef-steak.
“The present condition of things has existed too long in Virginia. The landlord has skinned the tenant, and the tenant has skinned the land, until all have grown poor together. I have heard a story—I will not locate it here or there—about the condition of the prosperity of our agriculture. I was told by a gentleman in Washington, not long ago, that he was travelling in a county not a hundred miles from this place, and overtook one of our citizens on horseback, with, perhaps, a bag of hay for a saddle, without stirrups, and the leading line for a bridle, and he said: ‘Stranger, whose house is that?’ ‘It is mine,’ was the reply. They came to another. ‘Whose house is that?’ ‘Mine, too, stranger.’ To a third: ‘And whose house is that?’ ‘That’s mine, too, stranger; but don’t suppose that I’m so darned poor as to own all the land about here.’”
But more to the purpose is the following statement of “the venerable Edmund Ruffin,” President of the Virginia Agricultural Society.
“A gang of slaves on a farm will increase to four times their original number in thirty or forty years. If a farmer is only able to feed and maintain his slaves, their increase in value may double the whole of his capital originally invested in farming before he closes the term of an ordinary life. But few farms are able to support this increasing expense, and also furnish the necessary supplies to the family of the owner; whence very many owners of large estates, in lands and negroes, are throughout their lives too poor to enjoy the comforts of life, or to incur the expenses necessary to improve their unprofitable farming. A man so situated may be said to be a slave to his own slaves. If the owner is industrious and frugal, he may be able to support the increasing numbers of his slaves, and to bequeath them undiminished to his children. But the income of few persons increases as fast as their slaves, and, if not, the consequence must be that some of them will be sold, that the others may be supported, and the sale of more is perhaps afterwards compelled to pay debts incurred in striving to put off that dreaded alternative. The slave at first almost starves his master, and at last is eaten by him—at least, he is exchanged for his value in food.”
A large proportion of the negroes sold to these South-western planters, then, had probably been bought by traders at forced sales in the older States, sales forced by merchants who had supplied the previous owners of the negroes, and who had given them credit, not on account of the productive value of their property as then situated, but in view of its cash value for sale, that is, of the value which it would realize when applied to cotton on the new soils of the Southwest.
The planters of the South-west are then, in fact, supplying the deficit of Eastern production, taking their pay almost entirely in negroes. The free West fills the deficit of the free Eastern cereal production, but takes its pay in the manufactured goods, the fish, the oil, the butter, and the importations of the free East.
Virginia planters owning twenty to forty slaves, and nominally worth as many thousand dollars, often seem to live generously; but according to Northern standards, I do not think that the comforts and advantages for a rationally happy life, which they possess, compare with those of the average of Northern farmers of half that wealth. When they do, they must be either supplying slaves for the new cotton fields or living on credit—credit based on an anticipation of supplying that market.
Of course it cannot be maintained that no one, while living at the South, is actually richer from the effects of the cotton demand. There are a great many very wealthy men at the South, and of planters, as well as land dealers, negro dealers, and general merchants, but, except in or near those towns which are, practically, colonies of free labour, having constant direct communication and intimate relationship with free countries, the wealth of these more fortunate people secures to them but a small proportion of the advantages which belong to the same nominal wealth anywhere in the Free States, while their number is so small that they must be held of no account at all in estimating the condition of the people, when it is compared with the number of those who are exceedingly destitute, and at whose expense, quite as much as at the expense of their slaves, the wealth of the richer class has been accumulated.
This cannot be rightly deemed extravagant or unjust language. I should not use it if I did not feel satisfied that it was warranted, not only by my own personal observations, but by the testimony of persons whose regard for the pride of the South, whose sympathy with wealthy planters, and whose disposition not to underrate the good results of slavery, if not more sincere than mine, is more certain not to be doubted. I quote, for instance, a single passage from the observations of Mr. Russell, an English gentleman, who, travelling with a special view of studying the agricultural condition and prospects of the country, was, nevertheless, so much limited in time that he was obliged to trust in a great degree to the observations of planters for his facts.
“In travelling through a fertile district in any of the Southern States, the appearance of things forms a great contrast to
that in similar districts in the Free States. During two days’ sail on the Alabama river from Mobile to Montgomery, I did not see so many houses standing together in any one spot as could be dignified with the appellation of village:[61] but I may possibly have passed some at night. There were many places where cotton was shipped and provisions were landed, still there were no signs of enterprise to indicate that we were in the heart of a rich cotton region.
* * * The planters supply themselves directly through agents in the large towns, and comparatively little of the money drawn for the cotton crop is spent in the Southern States. Many of the planters spend their incomes by travelling with their families in the Northern States or in Europe during the summer, and a large sum is required to pay the hog-raiser in Ohio, the mule-breeder in Kentucky, and, above all, the Northern capitalists who have vast sums of money on mortgage over the estates. Dr. Cloud, the editor of the Cotton Plant [Alabama], assured me that after all these items are paid out of the money received for the whole cotton crop and sugar crops of the South, there did not remain one-fourth part of it to be spent in the Southern States. Hence, the Slave States soon obtain a comparatively stationary condition, and, further, the progress they make is in proportion to the increase of freemen, whose labour is rendered comparatively unproductive, seeing that the most fertile land is occupied by slaveholders.”[62]
I questioned the agent of a large land speculation in Mississippi, a Southerner by birth, with regard to the success of small farmers. In reply he made the following statement, allowing me to take notes of it, understanding they were for publication:—
“The majority of our purchasers have been men without capital. To such we usually sell one hundred and sixty acres of land, at from two to three dollars an acre, the agreement being to pay in one, two, and three years, with six per cent. interest. It is very rare that the payments are
made when due, and much the largest proportion of this class fail even to pay their interest punctually. Many fail altogether, and quit their farms in about ten years. When crops are generally good, and planters in the same neighbourhood make seven bales to a hand, poor people will not make over two bales, with their whole family. There is —— ——, in —— county, for instance. We sold him one hundred and sixty acres of land in 1843. He has a family of good-sized boys—young men now. For ten years he was never able to pay his interest. He sold from two to four bales a year, but he did not get much for it, and after taking out the cost of bagging and rope, and ginning and pressing, he scarcely ever had two hundred dollars a year coming to him, of which he had to pay his store bills, chiefly for coffee and molasses, sometimes a little clothing —some years none at all. They made their own cloth mostly in the house, but bought sheeting sometimes. He has made one payment on the principal, from a sale of hogs. Almost the only poor people who have kept up to their agreement have been some near ——, since the cotton factory was started there. It is wonderful what a difference that has made, though it’s but a picayune affair. People who have no negroes in this country generally raise corn enough to bread them through the year, and have hogs enough ranging in the swamps to supply them with bacon. They do not often buy anything except coffee and molasses and tobacco. They are not generally drunkards, but the men will spend all the money they may have and get gloriously drunk once or twice a year, at elections or at court time, when they go to the county town. I think that two bales of cotton a year is as much as is generally made by people who do not own negroes. They are doing well if they net over fifty dollars a year from their labour, besides supplying themselves with corn. A real smart man, who tends his crop well, and who knows how it ought to be managed, can make five bales, almost always. Five bales are worth two hundred and fifty dollars,
