350 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



estates into small holdings and earning its shareholders a fair and 

 steady dividend. But in addition to that example we have our own 

 allotment associations, which have earned for themselves an excellent 

 record. That is because they are voluntary institutions formed 

 purposely to further their appointed work, with a good and deter- 

 mined will at their back and a single well-defined task to perform. 

 The cause accounting for their success, as compared with the very 

 moderate achievements of the county councils in dealing with the 

 creation of small holdings, is not only that for allotment purposes 

 no claim is made upon the allotment holder's pocket, but also that 

 the allotment association has no other task committed to it except 

 to provide allotments for applicants, and that among its members 

 there is no hanger-back to impede the work, but all taking part are 

 eager to promote its accomplishment. 



As a side consideration to this question I should like to renew my 

 plea that so far as small holdings are to be allotted as freeholds, 

 what has been done in Ireland should be carried out likewise in Great 

 Britain, that is, that acquirers of small holdings aided with public 

 money should be required to have their titles registered in the public 

 land register. That would be a useful step towards making registra- 

 tion of titles common. And such registration is an indispensable 

 condition to the provision of easier and cheaper mortgage credit, such 

 as is often clamoured for— not least so for the purpose now in hand. 

 For I have found landlords very willing to cut up their properties 

 into small holdings, to let to small folk— which experience has proved 

 advantageous to themselves — but grudging, or else being unable to 

 meet the expense of setting up the requisite new buildings. To such 

 men easy provision of mortgage credit obtainable without the heavy 

 solicitors' charges connected with the inquiry into title, would prove 

 a boon. And so it would help on our multiplication of small holdings 

 for applicants now waiting. 



But to return to the question of our agriculture. It did not 

 need Sir Th. Middleton's masterly report to tell us that we are not 

 doing justice agriculturally to our opportunities, and the reason of 

 such failure is plain. Among our farming personnel we have 

 splendid specimens of good cultivators. However, beside them are 

 a mass of indifferent, in some cases very indifferent, farmers. How 

 did they come into their positions of what under one aspect is 

 trustees for the public good, administrators set over the nation's 

 land, to produce the nation's food in sufficient quantity ? They 

 were put there, incompetent as under present conditions they are 

 found to be, in virtue of our antiquated land system, which places 



