152 Large and Small Holdings 



workers, little capitalists and so forth ; that is to say, the class which 

 is prepared to pay something for the non-economic advantages of 

 landed property. The experience of Lord Wantage's Land Company, 

 for example, was that this class was the first to make use of such 

 opportunities 1 , rather than the small holders and agricultural labourers 

 for whom they were intended. 



The Act of 1907, however, strongly favoured the formation of 

 Agricultural Co-operative Associations (cp. s. 9); and accordingly 

 new results are to be recorded since the date of its coming into force. 

 In 1909 fifteen Small Holdings Societies or similar associations of a 

 co-operative character hired land, amounting to 1893 acres, under 

 the Act. And the Small Holdings Commissioners wrote in their 

 most recent Report that " the experience of the last two years has 

 strengthened our conviction that the method of establishing [such 

 holdings] with the best prospect of success is to acquire an area of 

 land and to let it to a properly constituted Co-operative Association 

 under section 9 of the Act 1 ." 



It is necessary nevertheless to beware of ascribing such an extension 

 of small holdings as has yet been achieved either to voluntary reform- 

 ing zeal or to the Small Holdings Acts. Neither has been in any 

 sense a main cause of the progress shown by the statistics. Even so 

 far as they have been effective, it has not been because their aim was 

 socially justified, but because it was economically possible. For more 

 than a century similar efforts had been made without any success 

 worth mentioning. That legislation and association for these ends 

 was even possible was due to economic conditions. Up to 1880 

 the champions of the small holdings system had the economic 

 tendency of the time against them ; the more recent agricultural 

 developments have been very much in their favour. Since then also 

 dates the small but perceptible result achieved. If the branches of 

 agriculture which form the proper domain of the small farmer were 

 still unprofitable, all attempts artificially to create small holdings 

 would be as unsuccessful as ever. Indeed, the importance of market 

 conditions and choice of employment to the small holder are generally 

 recognized. Thus the Surrey Association carefully chose for its 

 holdings grass-land of the first quality, as being specially suited 

 for the purposes of both stock-farmers and fruit-growers : i.e. it 



1 Shaw Lefevre, op. cit. pp. 254 ff. 



2 Annual Report on Small Holdings, 1910, p. 14. Permission to let land to such an 

 Association has to be given by the Board of Agriculture, which has laid down rules on the 

 subject, widely distributed by the Agricultural Organisation Society. 



