202 My Little Farm 



near the current figure wherever we have enough 

 crime for the required assistance to the Govern- 

 ment and its Purchase Programme ; but even at 

 that, our peasant's annuity, with local taxes, brings 

 his annual liability to about .60, and his land to 

 2 an acre, which will require the regiment of 

 soldiers permanently on the fence to prevent the 

 peasant coming back into congestion, while no 

 one has considered the necessary addition to the 

 Army Estimates. 



We have seen the peasant before " relieved " on 

 far easier terms than can be secured now, and he is 

 often cursing the day he left the four acres for a 

 farm requiring agricultural intelligence. No 

 Government authority can ever hope to be more 

 successful than the Congested Districts Board in 

 getting land below its value as a necessary 

 consequence of crime ; but the experts now 

 in charge of the Board's work assure us 

 that the migrants grow increasingly tired 

 of being " improved," as it continually requires 

 in them a standard of efficiency which cannot 

 possibly be achieved on an education designed 

 solely for " a future existence." The man now 

 paying 4 a year rent can earn it in England 

 as a migratory labourer, but he could not hope to 

 save 80 a year that way, and he does not see how 

 to find 2 135. per acre on land which can be no 

 better than his own after a few years of his ignorant 

 treatment. A man accustomed to finance an 

 annual budget of 25, with his family income at 

 or 20, is frightened by a budget of 350 a 



