206 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



additional argument in favour of meeting the settlers liberally. 

 For wherever the cutting up is done on really non-profit yielding 

 lines, money or money's worth comes in sometimes almost over- 

 abundantly. The small properties credited represent a proportion- 

 ately so much larger value than the big, out of which they were 

 taken. Thus Major Poore found at Winterslow that there was a 

 tidy fund coming in from the payments received, for collective 

 employment. And in the partitioned property of Lenzen in 

 Germany, so divided, Herr Sombart, who would not take a penny 

 for himself, found that he had left his settlers really too well off, 

 and some of them in their excessive enjoyment of riches came to 

 be found getting themselves into trouble. 



There is another point which may possibly be held deserving of 

 incidental mention. Up to recently, when advancing Government 

 money in return for terminable annuities, we fixed the time for 

 repayment short enough to cause not a little inconvenience. That 

 mistake has been corrected by recent action, and our Government 

 now allows as long periods for repayment as any public authority 

 anywhere — in marked contrast with the short period still only 

 allowed in France. In truth, once action like that here referred to 

 is entered upon, time is of very little moment to the lender. It is 

 just because public authorities and societies formed expressly for 

 the purpose of making advances of the kind referred to can afford 

 to wait very long for repayment of their money that we instinctively 

 turn to them. But to the borrower long time, reducing the amount 

 of single instalments, is a substantial benefit. 



However, there is another most important point still to consider, 

 which applies equally to freehold and tenant holdings. Mr. Chaplin's 

 well-intended Act did not fail purely on the ground of the 20 per cent, 

 payment down fixed in it, nor have subsequent attempts to attract 

 settlers to the land as tenants produced, in general, less than the 

 expected and desired effect because of money conditions. The 

 great mistake that we have thus far made is this, that we have tried 

 to settle our men singly, on isolated holdings, where there could be 

 no touch, no common action with others, no mutual support and 

 neighbourship. Now this could not be expected to answer, save in 

 exceptional cases. Under such conditions our disparagers of small 

 holdings policy — many of them landlords, thoroughly well disposed 

 and having really tried to settle small men on land of theirs — are 

 perfectly right in contending that small husbandry will not generally 

 maintain its man. A holding standing all alone by itself wants 

 to have superior strength in it, just as does a man dependent entirely 



