4 INTRODUCTORY 



a sure and quick return for that labour ; and when 

 these conditions are subject to so much local varia- 

 tion, no hard and fast rule can be laid down as to 

 the methods which he can pursue with advantage. 



Besides the direct effects just mentioned, the 

 geological structure of England introduces further 

 complications into the purely agricultural problem. 

 Its vast coalfields, giving rise to so many industrial 

 centres, not to speak of the lesser mining industries 

 which have made England into as much a manu- 

 facturing nation as an agricultural one, have in- 

 directly much influence on the small -holding 

 question. On the one hand they disturb rates of 

 wages by offering a competition in employment 

 which gives the English working man an alternative 

 to a low agricultural wage in districts where, per- 

 haps, the return of the soil only admits of a low 

 wage. 



On the other hand, our large manufacturing 

 towns afford huge local markets, where the pos- 

 sibility of a retail price in garden or agricultural 

 produce enables that produce to be grown profit- 

 ably under unsuitable conditions of soil or climate. 

 Not the least important influence of an industrial 

 side to national life is its connection with small 

 holdings where these are used merely as adjuncts 

 to other forms of employment. Much land which, 

 from its nature and surroundings, could not yield 

 an entire living on a small scale, when utilized in 

 this way gets the benefit of the capital derived 

 from this other source, while at the same time it is 



