212 Large and Small Holdings 



make these demands it would seem to be in the highest degree 

 favourable to the progress of English agriculture. From the point of 

 view of social policy, on the other hand, a system of agriculture 

 depending mainly on small holdings is undoubtedly the most satis- 

 factory. Such a system prevents the rise of that opposition of class 

 interests which is so marked a feature of the large farm system 

 with its wage-labourers. The development of small holdings and 

 allotment holdings lessens the great danger of capitalist agriculture, 

 which is that the landless labourers drift to the towns, there to seek 

 compensation for what they have lost upon the land. Nothing but 

 small holdings can keep the people on the land so long as the 

 industrial labour-market is open to them. Nevertheless, social 

 reformers desirous of seeing the small holding system maintained and 

 developed must admit, in view of the facts of English agricultural 

 history, that it is the general economic conditions which at any given 

 time and place determine the problem of the unit of holding. The 

 small cultivator can only thrive when the articles which he can 

 produce better and more cheaply than the large farmer can also be 

 sold to better advantage than the characteristic produce of the large 

 farm. The surest means of securing the existence of the small 

 agriculturist is to raise the consuming-power of the mass of the 

 population, by keeping their food, and more especially their bread and 

 meat, free from taxation, and by reforming the conditions of town 

 life in every possible way. For the better the condition of the labouring 

 classes, the greater will be their demand for those articles in which 

 the small holder finds his proper domain. Mr R. A. Yerburgh, M.P., 

 who has already been mentioned as one of the great champions of 

 agricultural co-operation, recently expressed in well-chosen words the 

 tendency of the present conditions of agricultural life towards the 

 maintenance of peace, both in social and in political matters. The 

 reader who has followed the historical description given above will 

 appreciate the truth of Mr Yerburgh's words, which are quoted 

 here by his express permission, though they have not previously 

 been printed. He says: "The position of the farmer is now 

 "entirely different to what it was when he depended upon the pro- 

 " duction of the necessaries of life, corn and meat. Then, it is said, the 

 " common toast at the farmers' ordinaries was ' To the next bloody 

 " war ' ; the reason being that a war meant high prices for the farmer. 

 " Now the situation is completely different The farmer with us is 

 " chiefly interested in producing what we may call luxuries, such as 

 " milk, cheese, eggs, poultry, fruit. The sale of these depends upon 



