340 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



denounces the " laying of field to field " as a gross abuse and a wrong 

 to the fellow members of the nation. 



We cannot turn the stream of accomplished facts backward to the 

 acceptance of that altogether ideal system. But with all biblical 

 references to one's own " vine and fig tree," and the deserving man 

 " standing in his own lot in the end of days," we may take it to be 

 the aim which, so far as is possible, we ought to make for. Mean- 

 while we shall have to reckon with things as they are. 



However, land by itself is not the only thing which comes into 

 account in this matter, be it purchasable or tenantable. Offering 

 the bare land to a poor cultivator — which is what we have done — is 

 like offering a lump of raw meat to a man who has no apparatus with 

 which to cook it — or, as the French say, offering a handful of nuts to 

 a man who has lost his teeth. Besides the land, as a means of making 

 it practically valuable, there must also be money to cultivate it with, 

 or the land will become a mere white elephant to its holder, upon which 

 the poor cultivator stands to net, not a gain, but a loss. That is one 

 of the reasons why our old fogies will persist in declaring that small 

 cultivation cannot answer. It is not that it is small ; but that 

 there is supposed to be no money at its back. And so far from 

 giving the new settler easy access to the money required for profitably 

 cultivating his land, we have actually — all except Lord Ernie — 

 who could see further into a millstone than others, in his experiment 

 at Maulden — asked money, or the proof of the possession of money, 

 from him. What difference the possession or else the lack of money 

 makes in the acquisition or tenancy of the land, which under our Act 

 we have offered, we see in the result already quoted of 68 per cent, 

 of the land disposed of going, not to genuine cultivators — the agri- 

 cultural labourers, for whom the gift was intended, who would 

 benefit the nation and themselves by turning it agriculturally to the 

 best possible account, but who lacked the requisite funds — but to 

 tradesmen and publicans, who wanted the land for their own pur- 

 poses — their pony or cow, or donkey, that is, as an accommodation 

 to themselves — people whom the legislators so sapiently ordering 

 things were not in the least thinking of, but who had the requisite 

 money. 



Under the Act of 1908 the provision of credit for cultivators 

 entering upon the occupation of land was, as I am in a position to 

 assert, certainly and distinctly intended. The Act advisedly gives 

 county councils — to which bodies, not altogether fortunately, rather 

 than to a central body specially created for the purpose and operating 

 through branches, or to associations specially enrolled, the adminis- 



