72 Large and Small Holdings 



the rising price of corn on the other increased the demand for capital 

 with which to purchase machinery or better tools, or to improve the 

 soil. The evident connection between the application of science to 

 arable farming and the formation of large holdings naturally led to 

 the idea that the law of the unit of management was the same for 

 agriculture (identified with corn-growing) as for industry. Improved 

 methods meant in both cases that the smaller unit was replaced by 

 the larger. "Why should the farming trade totally differ from all 

 others 1 ?" asked Sinclair in his defence of the large farm system in 

 1793. Eighty-five years later, when agricultural machinery was still 

 further developed, Caird pointed out that agricultural progress illus- 

 trated the same principles which had caused the power-loom to 

 replace the hand-loom 8 . The theory is also to be found in the 

 Socialist writers Marx and Kautzsky. It was very natural that it 

 should arise under the historical circumstances described above. The 

 whole history of the development seemed to show that as methods 

 improved large farms drove out small. The point overlooked was 

 that the whole application of these improvements had been con- 

 ditioned by the peculiar circumstances of the market, namely by 

 the continually increasing profits on corn. No one realised that 

 market conditions might so change as to favour other branches of 

 production which were less dependent on improved technique. It 

 was therefore no wonder that the theory of the absolute superiority 

 of the large farm ruled between 1760 and 1880. 



The opponents of this theory were quite as one-sided in their view 

 as its defenders. The question of the unit of agricultural holding has 

 always presented both an economic and a social problem ; and these 

 two distinct aspects governed the discussion of the question between 

 1760 and 1880 just as they do today. One set of writers set them- 

 selves to discover what size of holding would produce the best 

 economic results, and having arrived at the conclusion that the large 

 farm did so, proceeded to show by very weak arguments that it also 

 had social advantages. Another set were primarily interested in social 

 policy, and finding that the development of the large farm system 

 was a social evil attempted to show that it was also an economic 

 mistake. Marshall, in 1804, alludes to the two parties as consisting, 

 the one of men "who have turned their attentions to agriculture," the 

 other of persons "who live in towns 3 ." The distinction is characteristic. 



1 Statistical Account, Vol. vm, p. 613. 



2 Caird, in Journal R. A. S., snd series, Vol. xiv (1878). 

 s Marshall, Landed Property \ p. 139. 



