Legislative Action 135 



legislation could only arise from the creation of a number of small 

 holders with a permanent interest in the land and in their own soil. 

 It had been proved, they said, "that in some parts of the country the 

 'magic of property' is entirely appreciated. It was pointed out that a 

 man who can give a year's notice to his landlord is much more likely 

 to be attracted to the towns than one whose all is invested in the 

 piece of land which he cultivates, and that a small occupying freeholder 

 will gladly do the work of two labourers for the earnings of one 1 ." 



Arthur Young, writing in the early years of the nineteenth century 

 of his visit to the small proprietors of the Isle of Axholme, had spoken 

 of "the magic of property" as there manifested. This phrase has sent 

 his name down to posterity as that of a champion of peasant pro- 

 prietorship, though as a matter of fact he was the most zealous of 

 advocates for capitalist large farming. Wherever the creation of 

 small properties is in question in England to-day, there that classic 

 phrase does duty. It naturally appears, therefore, in the Report of 

 1906. "The magic of property," it is there claimed, though not every- 

 where present in the England of to-day, might very well be developed 

 among small agriculturists. It might also be used as a means to bind 

 the countryman to the soil and to prevent the depopulation of the 

 rural districts. So far, in the Committee's opinion, "the advantages 

 of ownership" had not as a rule "been sufficiently forcibly put before 

 those who desire to cultivate land 2 ." 



Therefore, in spite of experience, which was all against the 

 possibility of the revival of peasant proprietorship on any consider- 

 able scale, the Committee only recommended that the sum to be paid 

 down by purchasers should be reduced from to ^, while it left un- 

 touched the question of any facilitation of small tenancies. The 

 proposal to offer landlords extensive facilities for borrowing from 

 public funds would indeed, if carried out, have increased the possi- 

 bility of the creation of such tenancies; but it would have had no 

 bearing on their formation by the local authorities. 



This view of the Committee, that the Government should mainly 

 concern itself with the provision of small properties only, was shared 

 by, and indeed was largely based on the support of, Mr Jesse Collings, 

 the original champion of the Act of 1892. He remains now as then 

 a staunch upholder of the position that any multiplication of small 

 holdings must be in the first place a multiplication of small properties. 

 He protested in a Minority Report of his own against the Committee's 



1 Small Holdings Report, 1906, p. 29, 123; see also the whole section on Tenants or 

 Freeholders, pp. 28-30. 2 Ibid., pp. 29 f. 



