HOW TO SETTLE 207 



upon his own efforts. There are, indeed, conditions under which 

 even the " lonesome " man can make a good thing out of a small 

 holding — say, in the immediate neighbourhood of a town, where there 

 is a good market and there are opportunities for raising intrinsically 

 valuable produce, and marketing is an easy process. However, 

 these cases are in no wise sufficient in number to come largely into 

 account. We cannot with any hope of success act in opposition to 

 the established rules of nature ; and nature has, wisely no doubt, 

 implanted a bent for gregariousness in men's character. Even 

 Robinson Crusoe must have his Friday ; and we are living in a 

 world very different from that which Alexander Selkirk discovered 

 in Juan Fernandez. The French have a proverb which says that 

 even the rich stand in need of the poor sooner or later. Much more 

 do the comparatively poor stand in need of one another's presence — 

 on more than social considerations, of which I am not now going to 

 speak. What is the small man to do all by himself ? Nowhere where 

 small husbandry has proved anything of a success do you find him 

 in that position. Everywhere — in Denmark, in Belgium, in Switzer- 

 land, in France, in Germany — do you see small men settled, or else 

 now settling, in clusters, in groups, deliberately seeking touch with 

 their neighbours and support from them in their work and in their 

 dealings. It may be objected that Prussia in its land settlement, 

 both of the de-Polonising and of the purely economic type, had no 

 choice but to settle cultivators in groups, inasmuch as its specific 

 object was to cut up large properties and plant peasants on the 

 ground previously occupied by squires. That is true. However, 

 the results distinctly and markedly show how great are the advan- 

 tages of settling in groups. The benefits of settlers having neigh- 

 bours to work with and to rely upon for mutual assistance are so 

 visible at every point that it is difficult to imagine successful settle- 

 ment on any other lines. In the same way Italian cultivators of 

 the successful affittanze collettive could not settle otherwise than in 

 groups, because groupwise settling, in order to obtain the land that 

 they desired to have wholesale, at a cheap rent, was the charac- 

 teristic trait of their whole plan. But there, once more, the bene- 

 fits of groupwise settling are so plainly apparent and so fully realised 

 that they must count as a conclusive argument in favour of group- 

 wise settling. We are organising agriculturists — more especially 

 small holders — in co-operative societies, because it is recognised that 

 they stand to gain much by collective action, as contrasted with 

 individual. That collective action should begin at the start of 

 their doings. The saving in hire of land by collective action is 



