364 OWNERSHIP v. OCCUPANCY 



Renting rather than Purchasing Powers of 

 the Act are most used. 



One of the chief points which we have to learn 

 from the foregoing statistics is that the purchasing 

 powers of the Act have only been made use of by 

 would-be small holders in the case of two County 

 Councils i.e., Worcestershire and Cambridgeshire ; 

 and in the latter case it was only found possible to 

 get four purchasers (since risen to six) out of the 

 sixteen men who wanted the land. 



Even in the case of Worcester it was found 

 necessary to allow a certain proportion of the men 

 to become tenants for some years before they were 

 in a position to ' complete the purchase ' i.e., pay 

 down the deposit as required. 



In the other cases, the only expedient was to 

 allow the men to become tenants ; in the case of 

 four Councils Warwick, Sussex, Hampshire, and 

 part of London the land is leased by the Council 

 itself for a term of years, and therefore the only 

 course open is to sublet it. 



If, therefore, we go by the fact that the desire of 

 the applicants is always for renting land, and that 

 (except in Worcestershire) it is the powers of the 

 Act for renting that have been most used, we must 

 conclude that the bias of the Act towards purchase, 

 at any rate the necessity to pay a deposit, has been 

 a mistake. 



