DEMAND FOR OWNERSHIP 89 



from the country, prove that they are not 

 few. The paucity of appHcations under the 

 Small Holdings Acts is the strongest argu- 

 ment for altering the procedure. When the 

 facilities offered are better the applicants are 

 very numerous. The Duke of Bedford had 

 500 applicants for 17 holdings at Maulden. 

 Even if they really were few, that would be 

 no reason for discouraging those there are, but 

 quite the contrary. There are other men of 

 different temperament or differently situated 

 who do not wish to be owners and prefer to 

 be tenants. By all means let them be catered 

 for too. The two classes are not mutually 

 exclusive. 



The Re-creation of Village Life. 



Of course, the case of small owners does 

 not cover the whole question of ownership. 

 The varying conditions of farming require all 

 sizes of holdings, and the cultivating owner 

 is desirable in all of them because he has more 

 interest in getting the best out of the land 

 than a tenant. At one end of the scale there 

 is the sitting tenant of a large farm who may 

 become its owner, and at the other is the 

 ordinary agricultural labourer who becomes 

 the owner of a small plot of ground. In 

 France, which of all industrial countries 

 has retained the largest proportion of its 

 population on the soil, the majority of the 



