HOW TO SETTLE 195 



large settlements after little time. There are a number of ex- 

 soldiers, no doubt, who, having been previously used to cultivation, 

 make excellent settlers. We have such ; and Canada seems full of 

 them. There have also been good soldier-farmers in Sweden, in the 

 Military Frontier district of Austria and, most notably, in South 

 Africa. However, all these were farmers first and soldiers after, 

 which is a very different thing from soldiers becoming farmers. It 

 is just in South Africa that the question of settling soldiers on the 

 land was after the Boer War taken seriously into consideration, 

 and the late H. 0. Arnold Forster was sent out by his Government 

 to inquire into the question. He came home disappointed with 

 the proposition, as he made no secret of owning. 



There are other unlikely candidates in plenty whom we, neverthe- 

 less, hope to see converting themselves into good settlers. 



However, this is only quoted as one instance. Hollesley Bay 

 apparently has taught us no lesson. Still we seem to consider that, 

 soldier or no soldier, any one will do to carry on the nation's hus- 

 bandry, soon to pick up gold and silver on his Tom Tidler's ground. 

 The case of the soldiers only places such belief in telling relief in 

 the sense that in their case the settlement is proposed as a sort of 

 prize or certain reward, as a sinecure may be awarded to an active 

 and obedient politician, or a fat living to a younger son. 



Now, although the old opinion is still widely diffused in the country 



in respect of large farming as of small, there is no greater mistake 



that can be made. The generally backward state of our farming, 



upon which Lord Selborne has, while Minister of Agriculture, 



tellingly turned the limelight, and which, by the side of those 



brilliant exceptions which provide additional proof, every writer 



on national agriculture complains of, makes the matter abundantly 



clear. Here we have holdings admittedly under-rented, and yet 



in ordinary times repaying their occupants only to such an extent 



that they can just, as a prominent writer puts it, glean a bare 



" living " from them, instead of " making money," "skimming a small 



return off a wide area," in other words, just scraping along. By 



the side of them are men of knowledge who produce quantity, 



and from that quantity take a good profit. It was a common saying 



at one time — I am advisedly speaking of some time ago — that the 



writers on agriculture were farmers who had failed in their farming, 



just as Mr. Disraeli described literary critics as authors who had 



failed in authorship. The reflection cast upon these men was at 



the time true — whatever it might be now. But it argues nothing, 



so I would point out, against the men of the pen. They know their 



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