SMALL-HOLDINGS AND CREDIT UNIONS 47 



intermediate between freehold and leasehold could be 

 found, under which a lease might be granted for the 

 life of a man and his family at the very least. Still, 

 he admitted that there is an antipathy to leaseholds in 

 Denmark. He informed me that under the laws of 

 1899 and 1904 the only mortgage a State small-holder 

 could obtain upon his land was one in favour of the 

 State. In the law of 1909, however, this was altered ; 

 the upshot of the alteration being that the State small- 

 holder is now able to raise further mortgages on the 

 land which he has bought with the aid of public 

 money. 



I suggested that in these circumstances the whole 

 scheme might ultimately break down, and he agreed 

 with me. He added, however, that in practice more 

 than nine-tenths of the value of the property cannot 

 be secured on loan, but the trouble was that such 

 provisions as those of the last Act opened the door to 

 fraud. For this reason and for others he would prefer 

 a lease for several lives, involving no repayment of 

 capital sums to Government, but only that of an 

 annual rent. 



Although the actual result of the working of the 

 Act of 1909 is not yet ascertained and remains in 

 doubt, on various grounds he considered it the worst 

 of the three. Thus much dissatisfaction is caused by 

 the comparatively small proportion of the applicants 

 to whom it is possible to give loans from the fund 

 available, the rush being too great to enable all to be 

 accommodated. Again, the 4000 kroner man created 

 by the first Act of 1899, being unable to live entirely 

 out of the proceeds of his holding, had to work for 

 others as well as for himself and thereby earn outside 

 money. But the 6000 kroner man created by the last 



