x AUTHOR'S NOTE TO NEW EDITION 



would be called upon to quit. This must, on the 

 other hand, operate to the disadvantage of the seller, 

 the value of whose property would be decreased, for 

 the good reason that he could not give immediate 

 possession to the purchaser. Surely the real solution 

 of the problem is that which, in common with many 

 others, I have urged in this book and elsewhere; 

 namely, that tenants should be assisted to purchase 

 their holdings, with money borrowed either from the 

 State direct or from a land bank which is controlled 

 and supported by the State. It is earnestly to be 

 hoped, moreover, that whatever Government is finally 

 called upon to deal with these great questions will 

 come to the conclusion that, in the interest of the nation 

 as a whole, this is no time to further depreciate the 

 value of British agricultural land by the imposition of 

 conditions which will add difficulties to its sale or 

 otherwise, and thus to make its ownership even more 

 onerous and unprofitable than it is at present. 



It should, I submit, be remembered that in this 

 case of double notice it is not only the holder of many 

 acres (popularly supposed to be a person of enormous 

 wealth) who would be called upon to suffer. The small 

 people who buy or own a farm, and who or whose rep- 

 resentatives afterwards let it, would also find them- 

 selves injured should circumstances arise under which 

 it is found necessary or desirable to sell. From these, 

 too, an extra year of notice could be claimed, and their 

 power of delivery to a purchaser thereby circum- 

 scribed. In short, this Bill, if it becomes an Act, 

 will discourage ownership of English land, a result 

 which, I imagine, no party in the State can really 

 desire, with the exception, perhaps, of that of the 

 advanced Socialists. 



