Land Problems and National Welfare 



This is the crux of the whole problem. There 

 is no use in dumping people on the land and 

 leaving them to shift for themselves : if this is 

 to be the " policy " then all that can be said is 

 that a system of tenancy will prove less disastrous 

 than a system of ownership. 



If the people freshly placed on the land are to 

 succeed they must be shown how to make the 

 utmost out of the land. And how can these 

 newly started small holders be expected to make 

 the utmost out of the land, when even old- 

 established small holders in such ideal centres 

 as Spalding and the Vale of Evesham are not 

 doing so ? 



At Spalding, though the land is about the 

 richest in England, the average yield per acre 

 does not equal the average for the whole, good 

 and poor land alike, of Belgium — because the 

 small holders (having been left to shift for them- 

 selves) do not practise the best methods of 

 cropping and because they do not co-operate. 



At Evesham the introduction of a French 

 gardener by Mr. John Idiens gave a practical 

 demonstration of how much more produce could 

 be obtained per acre by the adoption of new 

 methods. 



If the whole question of small holdings could 

 only be dealt with as one entirely outside party 

 politics there would be some hope of a satis- 

 factory solution. There seems, however, little 



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