LEADING FEATURES OF THE WHEAT INDUSTRY 195 



felt by the majority of our politicians, act as a safe- 

 guard against the recurrence of this system, which was 

 gradually supplanted some twenty years ago by one 

 infinitely better as results clearly prove. But the work 

 of the early landowners is too often minimised by critics. 

 By their pioneer work in agriculture they occupy an 

 important position in the industrial history of the 

 Dominion. Although it cannot be said that the position 

 of the ordinary labourer was enviable at that time, it 

 must be admitted that it was on these large estates that 

 our present-day farmers first "found their feet." It is 

 true that the landowner in some cases strongly opposed 

 the settlement of the small farmer, but, on the whole, the 

 latter owes much to the former. It was the enterprise 

 of the landowner which gradually extended settlement, 

 meagre though it was at first. It remained for the more 

 modern farmer to develop an intensive settlement, and 

 in this he has succeeded eminently. 



TABLE XXVIII. 



The following table shows the relative positions of leasehold and 

 freehold in the provinces under investigation at the last census, 1911. 



(d) Size of Holdings. The following table shows the 

 total area (in thousands of acres), and the number of 

 holdings in groups as classified in the Census of 1911 : 



