438 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 



But no universal extension of the system can 

 be expected without legislative assistance, and 

 the chief value of the above schemes, whether 

 as failures or successes, lies in the indication they 

 afford of the lines on which this legislative action 

 should be based. 



It has been pointed out that the failure of the 

 V Small Holdings Act has been largely due to the 

 methods of its administration, and those who assert 

 that this failure points to the want of desire for 

 land amongst the rural population, or the impos- 

 sibility of establishing holdings on an economic 

 basis, are making such statements without the 

 adequate knowledge of existing facts on a com- 

 prehensive scale, which alone would make any 

 opinion reliable. 



At the same time the writer is very well aware 

 of the aspect of this question, which is the only 

 one known to a certain proportion of those who 

 have to deal, chiefly as landowners or agents, at 

 first hand with the details of our land system. 

 She is fully acquainted with those facts which are 

 called up as evidence of the uneconomic position of 

 the small holding in this country : the hand-to- 

 mouth existence of the last surviving stragglers of 

 a once successful race of small freeholders ; the bad 

 methods of cultivation, the wretched stock, and the 

 hard life of those who stick to traditional methods 

 under unfavourable conditions ; the habit of sub- 

 sidizing small holdings on many estates by keeping 

 them in repair on the basis of uneconomic rents ; 



