HOW TO SETTLE 193 



to the occasion, when their leaders, with genuine goodwill, invited 

 them to take a share in active movement after the passing of the 

 Small Holdings Act. 



The question has been further complicated, and its solution has 

 been retarded, by the absolutely needless controversy which has 

 arisen, as between the Big-endians and the Little-endians of Lilliput, 

 by the advocates on one side of ownership Guelphs, and on the other 

 of tenancy Ghibellines, the two between them making the matter 

 a political party question, with Liberals mainly on one side and 

 Conservatives almost exclusively on the other. 



In this way, by action or else inaction, on one side or the 

 other, the settlement of the question has been needlessly retarded 

 and the out-turn of serious labour has been kept disappointingly 

 low. 



In what we have thus far accomplished in the matter of small 

 holdings settlement we cannot be said to have proved signally 

 successful. The reason, I think, will, after discussion, be allowed to 

 be pretty plain. We have not proceeded on the right lines. We 

 have not entrusted the conduct of the business to quite the right 

 authorities. In our allotment policy we have proceeded on dis- 

 tinctly different lines, and the consequence is apparent. The 

 difference in the results obtained by the two movements, which in 

 substance ought to be one, is indeed glaring. Last September, 

 under the guidance of the Union of Allotment Holders' Societies, 

 more than a million allotments had been allotted and occupied, 

 and demand for more was still active. What is the cause ? For the 

 promotion of the allotment movement some eleven hundred local 

 associations or branches had constituted themselves, composed of 

 men and women who all had the spread of the movement warmly 

 at heart and pursued, in their associations, only this one object. 

 The results appear to be everywhere satisfactory. That movement 

 is, of course, in the main urban, though not by any means exclu- 

 sively so, and it is limited to small parcels of land, to be used only 

 for the raising of produce designed for the consumption of the allot- 

 ment holder himself and his family. Except for the compulsory clauses 

 under which the land may be claimed, one does not quite see why such 

 limitation should be insisted upon. In France, since a long time, 

 there is a great deal of good done by what are called Jardins Onrners. 

 It occurred to Madame Hervieu, of Sedan, that in the distribution 

 of charity to the poor greater benefit might be ensured by giving 

 them land to cultivate, out of which they mighl by their labour 

 raise not only cheap produce for themselves but also produce for 



R.R. O 



