COUNTY COUNCILS & SMALL HOLDINGS 225 



to County Councils, and in ten years those municipal 

 bodies had succeeded in acquiring but the insignificant 

 amount of 569 acres. 



Now when ParHament legislates in the interests of Rigi»teous 

 the people, in order that they may find some relief from tion 

 the hardships of life, and entrusts the working of its 

 measures to certain official corporate bodies, it is at least 

 expected that those officials will take the trouble to 

 rightly interpret the laws and administer them with 

 intelligence and promptitude. Failing this, there should 

 be righteous condemnation and punishment. 



Here is an actual result. 



One of the ablest contributions of modern times to the 

 necessity of creating a great agricultural industry in the 

 country, Land Reform, by the Right Hon. Jesse Col- 

 lings, M.P., page 207, has the following: 



" The County Councils — with some exceptions, which 

 will be noticed — have practically ignored the duty placed 

 upon them. For the most part they have not even 

 appointed advisory committees to consider the question, 

 which under the fifth clause of the Act, it made it com- 

 pulsory for them to do." 



In other instances the author of Land Reform, points 

 out that many of the County Councils regard the Act as : 



"A land speculation, on which — out of regard for the 

 rates — they are not warranted to enter." 



While on page 208 of the same work we find the writer, 

 in accounting for the failure of the Act, saying : 



" Members of County Councils, in the rural counties, 



15 



