FRIENDLY COMBINATIONS 261 



complications and its strong prejudices in favour of 

 peasant proprietary, or to County Council intervention, 

 with its greater cost and its disadvantages in other 

 directions, as affording the most desirable of links 

 between land-owners and small holders in those cases 

 where, from one cause or another, direct relations 

 cannot be established between them. 



For this desideratum I would look rather to the 

 creation of co-operative societies, or other combina- 

 tions, which would lease, or purchase, land in bulk 

 and let convenient lots to small holders, giving them 

 an absolute security of tenure subject to their efficient 

 management of the holdings and a guarantee of full 

 compensation for improvements, while exercising a 

 controlling influence, in the interests of the community, 

 over negligent cultivators. 



The advantages of a system such as this have been 

 shown in several localities where it has already been 

 adopted ; but the time has come for a much wider 

 application of the general principle than has been the 

 case hitherto. 



In the first place, the system in question surmounts 

 some of the chief difficulties felt by certain of the large 

 land-owners. Sympathetic towards the general move- 

 ment, they may shrink, as I have already shown, from 

 opening up direct relations with a large number of 

 small holders. But if they were approached by some 

 trustworthy society or combination, which said, ' Sell 

 or lease to us so much land, and we will guarantee you 

 payment of price, or rent, and relieve you of every 

 possible trouble, by ourselves undertaking everything 

 that the conversion of the land into small holdings 

 involves,' the scruples of the land-owners in question 

 and especially of the estate agents should be greatly 

 diminished, if not entirely overcome. A vast amount 



