Small Holdings and Agriculture 



Parliament has taken away the land ; it must 

 now reverse the process, and by careful legisla- 

 tion increase the number of men on the land. 

 The few efforts of politicians in this direction 

 during recent years have not on the whole been 

 remarkable for their success ; the hearts of the 

 workers have not been in the work. Unionists 

 and Conservatives have been altogether wanting 

 so far as a land policy is concerned — there was 

 no sign of such a policy until quite lately, when, 

 immediately before the election of January 1910, 

 Sir Gilbert Parker hastily sketched out a scheme 

 based on suggestions of Mr. Jesse Collings' 

 which Unionists for years had refused to adopt. 



This policy has been formally endorsed by 

 the Unionist leaders — and we agriculturists 

 must, I suppose, be thankful for small mercies 

 and hope that it will finally develop into a 

 working scheme worthy of adoption. 



To my mind the Unionists would have been 

 wiser in adopting the policy suggested by Mr. 

 Pratt. It is more elastic, and it combines all that 

 is good in the system of ownership with that of 

 tenancy ; above all, it suggests the soundest 

 of all methods of developing small holdings, i.e., 

 by letting farms to co-operative societies. Mr. 

 Pratt is one of our best practical men, and he 

 has devoted years to the study of land problems ; 

 yet he was not listened to, nor, as far as I know, 

 was his scheme even carefully considered. 



235 



