330 POSSIBILITIES OF THE SITUATION 



acre of my own I would rather stop in the country and grow fruit 

 than go into the town and look for work there.' 



In the end a greater inducement would be offered to the people 

 who are now on the land to remain there, while small beginnings, 

 such as those here suggested, might lead to much more substantial 

 results in individual cases. A man who starts with half an acre 

 may put up a greenhouse, then get another half-acre, and so go on, 

 step by step, until he gets together a good-sized business. I have 

 seen innumerable instances of that sort of thing, and the greater 

 the facilities that are offered, the better it will be both for the 

 people and for the country. 



One gains here a good idea of what land-owners could 

 do to provide the initial stages of that increased land 

 settlement which is assuming the proportions of a 

 national want ; but I still think it would often be 

 necessary to provide intermediary bodies who would be 

 able to develop schemes of small holdings including 

 therein suitable cottages on a scale which few private 

 land-owners would be either able or willing to under- 

 take. There is very little doubt that, if these inter- 

 mediary bodies whether co-operative or commercial 

 could be established on solid and essentially practical 

 lines, no great difficulty, as a rule, would be found 

 in their being able to obtain land, either by purchase 

 or lease ; though it would be essential to the success of 

 their scheme that they should have not only the right 

 soil and the right conditions in general, but also the 

 right sort of men as their tenants. 



From this latter point of view it would, I maintain, 

 be far better to deal with men who are already in the 

 country, with a view to keeping them there, than to 

 make costly experiments with the ' unemployed ' from 

 the towns. I am aware that schemes concerning the 

 settlement of the latter on the land generally make the 

 promise that only those who have actually come from 

 the country would be sent back there. It is doubtful, 

 however, if the man born in the country who has lived 

 some years in, say, the East End of London, is not, as 



