CHAPTER VII 



SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ASPECTS OF THE PROBLEM 



(a) Small Holdings as a Remedy for the Rural Exodus. 



THE social and political aspects of the problem of the unit of 

 agricultural holding have never been more prominent than in recent 

 times. Alongside of the economic tendency making for the division 

 of large farms into small, two non-economic forces of almost equal 

 strength have been at work, one furthering and the other counteracting 

 that tendency. The first has already been glanced at ; it remains to 

 show its origin and its result. 



Social politicians of the eighteenth century, in opposition to the 

 agricultural interest, attacked the large farm system on the ground 

 that it depopulated the land ; and in recent times Liberal reformers 

 have enthusiastically taken up the small holdings movement, as 

 seeing in it the one means of preventing the increasing rural exodus 1 . 

 Agricultural history justifies this view. It shows that a rural exodus 

 began precisely at the time when the evolution of the large farm 

 system began. The degradation of small farmers into day-labourers, 

 the expropriation of agricultural workers from the soil, the enclosure 

 of the commons, and the disappearance of the yeomanry, all resulted 

 from the economic pressure which developed large holdings, and 

 all at least contributed to drive the labourer from the land. The 

 proletarianised farmer or cottager had no longer any tie to bind him 

 to the soil, and under the bad conditions of rural life he turned his 

 eyes to the towns as his only hope. The yeoman, when converted 

 into a large farmer, no longer needed the help of all the members of 

 his family; he only directed the work of his farm, which was carried 

 out by wage-labourers. His sons, therefore, must either themselves 

 become farmers, or else go to the towns to become merchants or 

 factory owners. The development of the large farm system thus went 



1 Samuel, op. cit. pp. loof. 



