WORK DONE OR PROJECTED 233 



more readily and at lower rents through a co-operative 

 society than if they were left to their own resources as 

 individuals ; (2) that, owing to their mutual liability, they 

 would have a joint interest in looking after one another and 

 helping one another in case of need ; (3) that a society of 

 small holders would be able to make, and enforce, more 

 stringent tenancy regulations than a County Council could do 

 in the case of a large number of individual holders ; (4) that, 

 once joined together co-operatively, for the purpose of 

 land renting, the small holders might be expected to develop 

 other forms of co-operative action in the way of purchase 

 of necessaries, transport, sale, credit, insurance, etc. ; and 

 (5) that in these various ways the prospect of the small 

 holders being able to work their holdings with benefit to 

 themselves would be greatly increased. 



These advantages for the small holders had already 

 been clearly proved by such examples, for instance, as that 

 of " The Aylestone Allotments " (fully described in 

 Chapter XXI. of " The Transition in Agriculture "), this 

 being a case in which a group of men employed in the boot 

 and shoe and hosiery trades of Leicester formed a co-opera- 

 tive society in order to rent from a private owner, and 

 sub-divide among their members, a plot of land under 

 conditions that were far more favourable both to themselves 

 and to proper cultivation than if the men had been left to 

 act individually instead of collectively. 



It was no less found that there were great social advan- 

 tages in the system of co-operative land renting, since it 

 helped to establish comradeship, to create a community of 

 interests and to spread a spirit of mutual helpfulness among 

 those who thus joined together co-operatively, the general 

 tone of the group concerned being distinctly raised. 



ATTITUDE OF COUNTY COUNCILS. 



In October, 1907, the A. O. S. addressed a circular letter 

 to the County Councils of England and Wales calling 

 attention to the provisions of the new Act, suggesting that 



