"BUT FOR THE LAND" 75 



the Small Holdings Act of 1892, and in the 

 same year they agreed to buy at Catshill a 

 farm of 147 acres at £33 an acre. 



To show how necessary it is to break away 

 from official tradition in dealing with un- 

 educated people, the hand-bills and circulars 

 consisting of over 2000 notices, issued in an 

 official hole-and-corner way, received but one 

 application in answer. The apparent apathy 

 was probably due to the fact that the small 

 holders were asked to buy the land. However, 

 when a meeting was held at Catshill, and the 

 Act was explained to those present, the 

 Council satisfied themselves that a number 

 of people were unable to find the necessary 

 deposit of 20 per cent, and so agreed to take 

 a certain number of men as tenants as well as 

 purchasers. 



Obviously a scheme for providing land for 

 about twenty or thirty men, and these the 

 better off of the parishioners, did not go very 

 far to solve the problem of keeping starving 

 men off the rates. Well-meaning bureaucrats 

 so often fail to see the irony of offering to sell 

 land to a penniless man. 



Then in 1895 the Parish Council of Bel- 

 broughton awoke to the fact that they could 



