424 PRESENT-DAY EXPERIMENTS 



regular work and let strangers come in. But we, 

 as workmen, hope that it will be stopped before it 

 gets too late, so that we may keep in our own 

 village to work the same as we have done for years 

 that have gone by.' 



Considerable capital was made out of this letter 

 by those who viewed the scheme with distrust, and 

 who were averse to the small- holding system ; but 

 how groundless these objections proved is shown by 

 the report, which was a result of careful inquiry, 

 that within ten days of their dismissal every man 

 had been offered work or was in work. Mr. Diggle, 

 moreover, states that one Burwell labourer told 

 him that three small holders had called upon him 

 in one day to solicit his services, and goes on to 

 say : * As a matter of fact, at the time of writing 

 some of the occupiers of the larger holdings are 

 wanting labourers badly. Again, the expenditure 

 of about 1,000 on repairs and 1,500 on new work 

 necessitated by the change, together with the erec- 

 tion of about one mile of post-and-wire fencing, has 

 created employment, and given no little satisfaction 

 to artisans in Burwell and district.' 



But Mr. Rose did not leave the matter to chance. 

 He evolved a scheme of compensation for all the 

 regular workmen on the farm, based on the length 

 of service and the amount of wages. The sum 

 paid out in this way amounted to 389. In addi- 

 tion to his wages, which in the case of the older 

 men were for six months, anyone displaced from a 

 cottage was allowed an extra 2 10s. 



