WORK DONE OR PROJECTED 239 



eight of its members, each of whom gets five acres and a 

 house, the payments to extend over a period of 35 years. 

 The members in question are at present mostly engaged in 

 mining, and their idea is to cultivate their holdings with 

 assistance in their leisure time, raising potatoes, barley, 

 oats, parsnips and market garden produce generally, together 

 with poultry and pigs, for sale among the Duke's tenants' 

 and eventually depending altogether on their holdings for a 

 livelihood. 



PROGRESS AND PROSPECTS. 



The slowness of the progress thus far made by the Land 

 Renting Societies of small holders is to be accounted for in 

 many instances by the delay in procuring land ; but even 

 after land has been acquired there may be a difficulty in 

 finding a suitable person to act as secretary or manager. 

 The class of men from whom small holders are mainly drawn 

 have generally had little business training, and are unaccus- 

 tomed to accounts. Then they mostly have to work long 

 hours in order to earn their own living, and the amount of 

 time they can devote to secretarial or managerial duties, 

 performed either voluntarily or in return for a very slight 

 honorarium, is very limited. 



In districts where Branches of the A. O. S. have been 

 organised, under the devolution scheme already mentioned, 

 the difficulties here in question have been overcome to a 

 certain extent, the secretary of the Branch being able to give 

 to the secretaries of the small holders' societies advice and 

 personal assistance in regard to business methods, the 

 keeping of accounts, etc., and saving them the previous 

 necessity of dealing by means of correspondence with 

 difficult questions. The presence of an expert " on the 

 spot " should make a great difference in the spreading and 

 successful working of the local societies, and it may, there- 

 fore, be expected that this phase of the movement will 

 undergo still further expansion. 



On the trading side the advantages to be gained by co- 

 operative purchase have not yet been fully brought home to 



