OCCUPYING OWNERSHIP 9 



the provisions of the second part of the Bill — provi- 

 sions for the restoration of a peasant proprietary for 

 the production of the smaller articles of food. If the 

 provisions of the Bill as a whole were carried out we 

 should then see the two branches of the agricultural 

 industry — the large cultivation and the small cultiva- 

 tion — placed under what Arthur Young called the 

 "omnipotent principle" of ownership, with the result 

 that the produce of the land would be more than 

 doubled. The effect might be even to prove that Sir 

 J. B. Lawes was not over-sanguine when he said that 

 " the soil of this country is capable of producing very 

 much more wheat as well as meat, if not indeed all 

 that is required to support the population," 



The social and other questions involved in these 

 proposals will be considered later on ; but without 

 further argument every one must see that a revival of 

 agriculture, and of the numerous subsidiary trades 

 connected therewith, would, by a continually increas- 

 ing demand for labour, be a natural and practical 

 remedy for the depopulation of our rural districts and 

 for the over-population of our towns, which have 

 together become a national danger of the first mag- 

 nitude. 



