CHAPTER XIX 

 PEASANT PROPRIETARY AT HOME 



APART from the action of politicians, land reformers, 

 and public authorities, there are certain antagonistic 

 conditions which tend, on the one hand, to restrict, 

 and, on the other, to increase, the number of allotments 

 and small holdings in our own country. 



However sympathetic, as a matter of sentiment or 

 principle, many of our great land-owners may be to the 

 general movement, they are often practically governed 

 by, or otherwise leave themselves in the hands of, 

 their estate agents, and these individuals are, with 

 almost one accord, opposed to the system, and dis- 

 inclined to do anything that will lead to its extension. 

 They object to it both on personal grounds and as men 

 of business. On personal grounds it is obviously 

 much less trouble to themselves individually to deal 

 with one large farmer rather than with fifty or a hundred 

 small men occupying the same amount of land, and 

 including, probably, a considerable proportion who 

 would worry them more or less about complaints or 

 minor repairs and improvements which the large farmer 

 would keep to, or undertake, himself. Then, as men 

 of business, they consider it safer to deal with a farmer 

 on a large scale, whom they know and can trust, than 

 with a collection of small cultivators of whom they 



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