WHAT MIGHT BE AND WHAT IS 257 



italicising one or two sentences. Every word said 

 here by the writer, who is quite unknown to me, is 

 true, and he might even have put the case more 

 strongly than he has done. 



Again, in the Morning Post of 6th December 19 10, 

 the day on which I write these words, is a report 

 of the sixty-eighth annual general meeting of the 

 Farmers' Club. In the course of a debate on a 

 paper by Mr. W. A. Simmons, Mr. Christopher 

 Turnor, a large and very well-known landowner, 

 who, I believe, like myself has visited Denmark, 



"advocated the adoption in England of a land policy 

 of the kind which had had such beneficial results in Den- 

 mark and other countries, along with subsidiary industries 

 for the special advantage of the small-holder. He held 

 that the multiplication of owners lay at the root of our 

 national stability, and he considered that it would be wise 

 policy if steps were taken without undue haste to increase 

 the number of owners, which incidentally would have the 

 result of attracting a larger population to the country, 

 thereby improving the physique and health of the popula- 

 tion, which were threatened by living in towns. Apart alto- 

 gether from any social or political reasons, financial pressure 

 must of necessity compel a large number of owners to sell 



two years to a responsible man with knowledge and means, and thus give 

 him a chance of making it pay him, and at the same time of providing 

 for rent in the future. I once inspected a heavy-land farm in a district 

 in which numerous farms of the same character existed. It was sold at 

 a very low price to a popular owner of a fine estate in another county, 

 who at once selected a tenant with whose work he was well acquainted, 

 and whose wife was a most excellent helpmate, placed an adequate sum 

 to his account in the local bank, and promised him the farm at a very 

 moderate rent on his doing his best with it. Some three years after 

 the farm had been taken in hand it was nearly all reclaimed, well stocked, 

 growing heavy crops, and in every sense looking prosperous, except where 

 a small portion of the work had not been completed. . . . Apart from 

 the fallow land, there are large areas which would pay for cultivation 

 including much heath-land of the country, which covers over 18,000,000 

 acres, and among the permanent pasture which has been laid down by 

 Nature, or which man has laid down neither wisely nor too well." 



R 



