144 FEARGUS O'CONNOR'S ESTATES 



holdings are obstacles to the progress of scientific 

 agriculture, and that small holders tend to disappear 

 as farming progresses ; and that this is the result of 

 an economic law, and not of the English system of 

 land tenure. How else, he asks, can one account 

 for their disappearance in the last hundred years ? 

 It is to be hoped that the slight sketch given in the 

 foregoing chapters will already have served to show 

 that this view is not a sound one, and that, while 

 many of his arguments can be admitted to explain 

 the cause of failure of these particular undertakings, 

 they can in no way be applied to condemn the 

 extension of a small-holding system on wiser and 

 more practical lines. 



THE SMALL FARM AND LABOURERS' 

 LAND COMPANY. 



The idea of this company was first started by 

 Mr. Auberon Herbert. In April, 1885, a meeting 

 was held in London to consider it, and was attended 

 by many very influential people. The company 

 was subsequently formed ' for the purpose of buying 

 land and disposing of it in quantities and on terms 

 suited to the wants of different classes of buyers, 

 the main object being the multiplication of land- 

 owners and of those interested in and living on the 

 land.' The method of procedure was to buy land, 

 divide it into small holdings, and sell at a small 

 profit ; then reinvest the proceeds in a similar way. 

 Where the land was sold upon the system of repay- 



