230 PEASANT PROPRIETARY ABROAD 



be maintained, I should simply be repeating much that 

 has been said already, and in laying those arguments 

 afresh before my readers I should feel that I was as 

 regards the majority of them merely preaching to the 

 converted. 



I will, therefore, venture to assume that this general 

 thesis is formally accepted, and will pass on at once to 

 the essentially practical matter of detail as to the 

 principle on which small holdings or the allotments 

 which often rank as small holdings and may at least 

 be preliminaries thereto should be established. 



It may well be that in the past sufficient recognition 

 has not been given to all that land-owners, individually, 

 have done in the way of providing small holdings and 

 allotments. But there are obviously special grounds 

 for further action, and the problem of immediate con- 

 cern is the particular line that such action should take. 

 No great progress, however, is likely to be made until 

 a decision has been arrived at on the disputed question 

 as to whether small holdings should be owned, or only 

 rented, by their occupiers ; and it is this particular 

 point, in the first instance, to which I would direct 

 public attention, my own view of the situation being 

 that some of the greatest difficulties which have arisen 

 in the way of creating an adequate system of small 

 holdings, on a well-organized basis, in this country to 

 supplement such large farming as may still be practic- 

 able and profitable have been due to the attempt to 

 make small holders the actual owners of the land they 

 cultivate with a view to the creation on British soil of 

 a large body of ' peasant proprietors.' 



Theoretically, and looking at the matter from a 

 purely sentimental point of view, the idea of ownership 

 in regard to land appeals far more strongly to the vast 

 majority of people than the idea of tenancy. Earth- 



