250 PEASANT PROPRIETARY AT HOME 



steady disappearance various writers have deplored. 

 When, in spite of the hardest toil and the closest thrift, 

 many of these English peasant proprietors found them- 

 selves on the verge of starvation (as happened in bad 

 times), the only remedy open to them was to mortgage 

 their properties. In effect, nearly all of them were 

 ' mortgaged up to the hilt,' and, even if they avoided 

 foreclosure, they had to meet the heavy burden of 

 interest on the mortgages, as well, possibly, as the pay- 

 ments to other members of the family with which 

 inheritance might be saddled. 



Should the small free-holder resist the temptation of 

 raising money on mortgage, there is still the possi* 

 bility that he would yield to temptation in another 

 form by selling his land to some well-to-do citizen, 

 who might be willing to give him more than its com- 

 mercial value. In that case the small holding would 

 probably be a small holding no longer, but be used for 

 residential purposes. The small owner might even find 

 it desirable (as many an English cultivator, including 

 Lake District 'statesmen,' has done) to sell under 

 these favourable conditions, and, with the money thus 

 raised, start afresh as the tenant of a larger farm else- 

 where. Alternatively, if a small free-holder grew weary 

 of the labour involved, and found he was not adapted 

 thereto, he might sell out to a more successful neigh- 

 bour, who would add the plot to his own, and so, in 

 course of time, as the result of various purchases of 

 this kind, rise from a 'small' into a 'large' owner. 

 For these various reasons, there can clearly be no 

 guarantee of continuity in the ' ownership ' of small 

 holdings. 



Looking at the matter from the point of view of first 

 principles, I should say that purchase provided 

 tenancy on satisfactory lines can be secured instead 



