SECURITY FOR OUTLAY 253 



be too many solicitors in Parliament trembling for their costs, for 

 the Privy Council. As a matter of fact, only one single county 

 council has thus far made use of the power so conferred upon it. 

 And that is the County of London ! Its action is not likely to help 

 agriculture much or to assist farmers and small cultivators in 

 the purchase of their holdings. 



We are, in our present argument, concerned only with Registration 

 of Title as a means of charging land in such wise as to assist a pur- 

 chaser of a holding to raise the money for his purchase. For this 

 purpose, of filling the countryside with occupiers of land, obviously 

 easy access to mortgage credit is a matter of the greatest im- 

 portance. We may leave large landowners to pay their solicitors 

 heavy fees and to grumble under the load of their debt, which places 

 their title deeds in other hands. But for the smaller farmer or the 

 small holder it makes a substantial difference whether he is planted 

 on the land with full security of tenure, and with the certain know- 

 ledge that he will reap that which he has sown, or whether he is to 

 remain a tenant with a precarious title, working in all cases to some 

 extent for some one else — a quoad hoc profiteer — and in some cases 

 doing so to a very large extent. The rest of the organisation of easy, 

 safe, amortisable, cheap mortgage credit is child's play. There is 

 money enough in the country to welcome a new opening for invest- 

 ment in 6 or 7 per cent, mortgage bonds, and possibly it may be 

 practicable also to form co-operative mortgage societies. In Ireland 

 certainly that should not be beyond the bounds of practicability. 

 Once this Gordian knot is cut, a Alexandrian advance to triumph 

 and victory should not be difficult. 



