HOW TO SETTLE 217 



ceived by Mr. W. L. Charlton, applying the principle which has 

 proved so eminently successful in Mr. Vivian's " Tenant Co- 

 operators," which are suburban settlements — to agriculture, as in the 

 case of the " Wayf ord Tenants," which made a good beginning, 

 ought in due course to prove acceptable in this country. Under that 

 scheme the society buys an estate, and lets it out in small holdings to 

 members, who become individually tenants, with full security of 

 tenure assured to them, so long as they observe the terms stipulated 

 for, being at the same time also collectively their own landlords, 

 participating as such in all the profits made and all the increase of 

 value, and free to resign, disposing of their shares and their leases, 

 with the society's consent, at their own pleasure. 



In all the group settlements here spoken of, as a matter of course, 

 co-operation for all purposes becomes the recognised and accepted 

 rule. That is one of the benefits of settlement in groups. You 

 have the membership ready, the necessary touch ready, organisa- 

 tion and management easy. Naturally you buy and sell in common, 

 and, as far as occasion calls for it, you work in common and support 

 one another. And you have a little social world ready made in 

 which life is bound to be pleasanter and happier than it would be 

 in isolation. Rural life naturally loses'its blankness and dreari- 

 ness, its loneliness and helplessness ; and the little settlements grow 

 into happy and prosperous communities, in which things must go 

 badly indeed if you see occasion to miss the attractions of town 

 life, which are supposed now to draw so many people away from 

 the country. 



It is in groups that we want to settle our settlers, excluding from 

 the host of newcomers those who are not fit for the purpose, making 

 a beginning of their new career easy for the others by imposing no 

 tax upon them, allowing them to keep all their funds for working 

 capital and equipment, leaving them to pay off what is necessary out 

 of the profits which they make, so giving them a stimulus to the 

 exertion which begets production, and introducing them into the 

 little world, in which they will not stand alone by themselves, but 

 in which, in Professor von Dobransky's words, " a new world, a 

 world of brotherhood, a world of brotherly love and mutual help, 

 where every one is the protector and the assister of his neighbour," 

 will be found. 



Under some aspects it may be admitted that the present time is 

 not the most favourable for putting some of the schemes here set 

 forth into execution. We could not, for instance, in view of the 

 present high price of money — not to speak of other obstacles — 



