236 LAND REFORM 



British farmer is less able or less honest than the 

 Irish. 



But take the worst possibility. Suppose that adver- 

 sity overtakes an occupying owner, and he is obliged 

 to sell his farm, and that, times being bad, the price 

 realized is low. The farm is bought by a purchaser, 

 no matter how low the price, subject to payment of 

 the instalments, and that is all the State is concerned 

 with. So long as the instalments are paid, the State 

 receives interest for capital advanced, and the sinking 

 fund is operating with the effect that every year's pay- 

 ment diminishes the amount owing. The debt to the 

 State is lessening, while the security remains the same; 

 that is, a first charge on the holding till every farthing 

 is paid off. It is not like advancing money on com- 

 mercial undertakings which are liable to a failure in- 

 volving total loss. The security here — with a yearly 

 increasing margin — is on the land, and that ever 

 remains. 



Putting aside, therefore, the Irish precedent, it is 

 difficult to see how the argument that the Bill "would 

 involve too great a risk to the State " can be fairly 

 maintained. 



With regard to the farmer, seeing that the whole of 

 the purchase-money is advanced, he risks none of his 

 capital. Every year's instalment which he pays, in- 

 stead of being mere rent, goes to increase the value (to 

 him) of the holding, and all the improvements he may 

 make are his own. 



It is frequently urged that the State would be a 

 "harsh landlord," and could not, like an ordinary 

 landowner, postpone the payment of a year's rent on 

 account of bad seasons or other valid cause. 



First of all, the State, under the Bill, would neither 



