THE STATE SMALL-HOLDINGS IN DENMARK 485 



Denmark would be impossible without the help of such societies. 

 Indeed, Mr. Mortensen added that it would be difficult for Danish 

 agriculture generally to succeed in their absence. 



Mr. IVandsen, a very intelligent man, informed me that he 

 thought the State small-holders as a body were getting on fairly 

 well. Still the start was difficult, and it was necessary for a man 

 to possess rather more than the tenth of the capital which the 

 law prescribes. This, I think, from the appearance of the place, 

 must have been his own case. He said, what I could well be- 

 lieve, that if he were to sell out he would find himself consider- 

 ably in pocket on the whole transaction. 



I think that the reader will agree with me that on the whole 

 these examples of Danish State small-holders had a satisfactory 

 tale to tell, especially when Mr. Mortensen 's assurance is borne 

 in mind, that they were neither better nor worse than the aver- 

 age of their class. Still I imagine that Mr. Larsen's estimate 

 that about one-half of such people really succeed, while a third 

 only just get on and the remainder fail, is on the whole quite 

 accurate. Indeed, in the circumstances, I do not see how it 

 could be otherwise, since even with the powerful aid of co-oper- 

 ation the fight must be very hard, and one in which only good 

 men can win a decisive victory. 



In considering this question, I think we should remember that 

 the part of it which is concerned with public policy, namely, 

 whether such men should have freeholds or leaseholds, must be 

 kept apart from the matter of the actual success or otherwise of 

 those men. At present it can make little financial difference 

 to such people whether they are freeholders or leaseholders with 

 a fixed tenure, since as leaseholders I do not suppose that they 

 would be called on to pay much, if anything, less than they do 

 now under a system by whieh they purchase a holding in about 

 a hundred years. 



Of course there remains the problem of the rise in the price 

 of land, owing to the demand that is thus created. Hut if a change 

 were made from freehold to leasehold, the land would still have 

 to be found somewhere by government or other public bodies, 

 and therefore, without the aid of an expropriation act. in a 



