192 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



As it happens, there is a good deal being done abroad a knowledge 

 of which might assist us in our search for a promising policy. We 

 are not by any means the only nation occupied with thoughts of 

 " repeopling the land." Throughout the civilised world, from 

 America to far Japan, Governments and private folk are all astir 

 with schemes affecting the great task, and efforts to put their rural 

 " house in order " — in every country in its own peculiar way. That 

 is why one would certainly not recommend our simple copying 

 what is done elsewhere. But an examination of such doings might 

 prove of assistance to us. The aim pursued is not, indeed, in these 

 cases in every instance precisely the same as ours. Just as we, 

 before thinking of tackling the new small holdings question — 

 which is to place new occupiers on the land, busied ourselves with 

 settling the land question in Ireland — where our point was not to 

 attract new settlers, but to make people already settled comfortable, 

 more secure and prosperous by abolishing dual ownership, so in 

 some other countries the first task taken in hand has been to give 

 to small occupiers already in existence an improved chance by 

 gathering their scattered parcelets of possessions together into one 

 property by means of " adjustments," which some people will 

 speak of by the uncouth name of " restripings." The aim most 

 generally pursued, however, is the same that we ourselves have now 

 set ourselves to grapple with, of multiplying occupiers, under 

 ownership, as in Germany and in the United States, and to some 

 extent in France — elsewhere under tenancy, as in Italy, in some 

 Eastern countries, and lately in Spain. The earth, which God has 

 given to all humanity, is to be repartitioned, so as to amplify its 

 resources and provide more opportunities for men to tread in the 

 footsteps of their earliest forbears, devoting themselves to the 

 cultivation of the soil. 



There can be no question that at times those who have taken 

 the matter administratively in hand in our own country have been 

 thoroughly in earnest, anxious to bring the important question to 

 a settlement. But it has been disappointing to see with what tepid, 

 or actually negative, response their efforts have here and there met 

 on the part of those who ought, as one would think, to have been 

 foremost in giving them support. Knowing how they are composed, 

 one can scarcely wonder at the county councils, to whom the execu- 

 tion of the settlement task has been committed, proving in not a 

 few cases only lukewarm. Some of them indeed have shown 

 excellent goodwill. But it has been disappointing to see the co- 

 operative host failing to rise in anything like the expected strength 



