PEASANT PROPRIETARY 221 



foreign produce would be of great benefit to small 

 proprietors. This is not the place to discuss the 

 question whether an import duty falls on the foreign 

 importer or the home consumer, but in any case the 

 foreigner would have to pay a toll — which he ought to 

 pay — for access to our markets, which are at present 

 open to him free of all charge. 



And here, at the risk of repetition, we must again 

 remind the reader that these small holders are not 

 competing with one another for a limited trade. Men 

 in the labour market — at the dock gates or elsewhere 

 — are waiting and striving: to afet some of the limited 

 number of jobs to be had. But the peasant proprietor 

 competes with none except the foreigner who is in the 

 same line. Looking at the demand, the supply from 

 Catshill is but as a drop in the bucket. Were there 

 some hundreds of colonies of small proprietors, in 

 different parts of the country, they could supply but a 

 small portion, comparatively, of those smaller articles 

 of food which are now obtained from abroad. 



To further illustrate the "land hunger" which exists 

 in this country, the operations of the Small Hold- 

 ings Association may be quoted. This Association 

 was formed in ' 1 902 and then bought an estate in 

 Surrey — the Cudworth Estate — comprising 376 acres. 

 The land v/as divided into holdings varying from three 

 to twenty-five acres, and cottages were built on many 

 of them. These holdings were offered for sale on such 

 terms as were calculated to yield a reasonable profit 

 on the whole outlay. The undertaking being worked 

 on commercial lines, the terms offered, both as to 

 price and repayment, were of course less favourable 

 than those contained in the second part of the Land 

 Purchase Bill. 



