Three acres and a cow
Encyclopedia
Three acre
s and a cow was a slogan used among land reform
campaigners of the 1880s, and revived by the distributists of the 1920s. It refers to ideal land holding for every citizen.
The phrase was coined by Eli Hamshire in letters written to Joseph Chamberlain
and Jesse Collings
in the early 1880s. Hamshire did, in fact, own 3 acres (1.2 ha). Collings used the phrase as a slogan for his 1885 land reform campaign, and it became the battle cry of the fight against rural poverty. He became derisively known as "Three Acres and a Cow Collings."
Chamberlain used the slogan for his own "Radical Programme": he urged the purchase by local authorities of land to provide garden and field allotments for all labourers who might desire them, to be let at fair rents in plots of up to 1 acres (4,046.9 m²) of arable and up to 4 acres (16,187.4 m²) of pasture.
In What's Wrong With the World, G. K. Chesterton
used the phrase to sum up his own distributist views.
Acre
The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related...
s and a cow was a slogan used among land reform
Land reform
[Image:Jakarta farmers protest23.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Farmers protesting for Land Reform in Indonesia]Land reform involves the changing of laws, regulations or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution,...
campaigners of the 1880s, and revived by the distributists of the 1920s. It refers to ideal land holding for every citizen.
The phrase was coined by Eli Hamshire in letters written to Joseph Chamberlain
Joseph Chamberlain
Joseph Chamberlain was an influential British politician and statesman. Unlike most major politicians of the time, he was a self-made businessman and had not attended Oxford or Cambridge University....
and Jesse Collings
Jesse Collings
Jesse Collings was Mayor of Birmingham, England, a Liberal member of Parliament, but was best known nationally in the UK as an advocate of educational reform and land reform.-Background:...
in the early 1880s. Hamshire did, in fact, own 3 acres (1.2 ha). Collings used the phrase as a slogan for his 1885 land reform campaign, and it became the battle cry of the fight against rural poverty. He became derisively known as "Three Acres and a Cow Collings."
Chamberlain used the slogan for his own "Radical Programme": he urged the purchase by local authorities of land to provide garden and field allotments for all labourers who might desire them, to be let at fair rents in plots of up to 1 acres (4,046.9 m²) of arable and up to 4 acres (16,187.4 m²) of pasture.
In What's Wrong With the World, G. K. Chesterton
G. K. Chesterton
Gilbert Keith Chesterton, KC*SG was an English writer. His prolific and diverse output included philosophy, ontology, poetry, plays, journalism, public lectures and debates, literary and art criticism, biography, Christian apologetics, and fiction, including fantasy and detective fiction....
used the phrase to sum up his own distributist views.
See also
- "40 acres and a mule40 acres and a mule40 acres and a mule refers to the short-lived policy, during the last stages of the American Civil War in 1865, of providing arable land to black former slaves who had become free as a result of the advance of the Union armies into the territory previously controlled by the Confederacy,...
", referring to what was granted to emancipated slaves at the time of the American Civil War