SMALL HOLDINGS OR LARGE FARMS ? 129 



nationalisation — an agricultural policy declaring 

 definitely in favour of the creation of innumer- 

 able small holdings, or of large, State-controlled 

 farms, or of farms worked by guilds of crafts- 

 men. It is high time that a definite policy 

 should be outlined by somebody, and I have 

 had the temerity to attempt to do so in this 

 little book. 



Before discussing small holdings as a national 

 policy it would be well to present a few facts at 

 this stage to show how ineffective have been 

 the attempts of the Coalition Government to 

 fulfil their election pledges. Every fighting 

 man, it will be remembered, was promised, if he 

 proved himself a suitable applicant, a few acres 

 of the land which he had been defending with 

 his life. The first provision made was a ludi- 

 crously meagre one of 6000 acres in England 

 and Wales, and 2000 acres in Scotland. These 

 figures were afterwards increased by the facile 

 method of adding on an o. 



Estates purchased under these schemes were 

 to be managed by the Ministry of Agriculture 

 as State farms, worked either as small holdings 

 or as copartnership concerns. It was obvious 

 that these farms could not settle very many 

 men. Indeed, in answer to a question put in 

 the House of Commons on the 20th October 

 1920, the settlers at that date, after three years 

 of preparation, were stated to number only 706. 

 The duty of finding land for ex-soldiers was 

 9 



