210 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



ment of capital, or else of lack of that commodity, opulent societies 

 like these, not grudging outlay, are a distinct benefit to the nation. 

 Like our great co-operative societies engaging in farming, they set 

 an admirable example and stimulate intensive cultivation. The 

 Ferrara society, more in particular, has done excellent pioneer's 

 and examplar's work in reclaiming waste land — mostly swamp, 

 which, like the Dutch in their own country, and also the Dutch who 

 in past time settled in Lincolnshire, it converted into prime arable 

 land. But corporations of this sort do not help us much in the 

 present connection. 



Co-operatively farmed properties have not generally proved 

 much of a success. Some evidence given before one recent Royal 

 Commission confirms this conclusion. And it is not quite easy to 

 see why Socialists should have so much pinned their faith on them. 

 From their point of view one can understand a desire for nationalisa- 

 tion, and also for the linking together of separate cultivators in 

 organisations which may be expected eventually to bring about 

 nationalisation. One can also understand, still from a Socialist 

 point of view, schemes like that of the Co-operative Wholesale 

 Society, to convert all farming into a " productive branch " of 

 co-operative distribution, so as to secure the benefit for the con- 

 sumer, who will eventually, so it is expected, be the nation. How- 

 ever, the " little republics " to be so created really seem to consti- 

 tute, eventually, obstacles to " nationalisation," as creating private 

 interests which, just because they affect a number of people, may 

 not be easy to consolidate into one. A show is made of the assumed 

 " success " of some of the collectively managed (a conduzione unita) 

 qffittanze collettive of Italy. However, that " success " is a ques- 

 tionable quantity. No doubt these selected qffittanze do better — 

 produce more and benefit more people — than the property out of 

 which they were formed did when under single occupation. But 

 then, the point so started from was a very low one. The bold 

 and undoubtedly interesting experiment of the Ostia settlement 

 proved, after a decidedly promising beginning, an entire failure. 

 It was a curious undertaking to begin with. Here was a vast area — 

 I could not now from memory tell its exact extent — handed over 

 to a small body of excellent workmen, efficiently led and — Raven- 

 nates as they were — maintaining good organisation under their 

 decidedly competent chief, entrusted with an improvement lease 

 running for thirty years, not the first decade of which was in fact 

 completed, on which payment of rent was to begin only in the 

 second decade, or really only in the third, because the rent fixed for 



