RISKS TO THE STATE 247 



by the evidence placed before ihem. Accordingly the 

 Committee unanimously recommended " That a Bill 

 should be passed for facilitating the purchase of small 

 holdings by tenants with assistance from public funds, 

 somewhat on the lines of the measure brought in by 

 the Rt. Hon. Jesse Collings, m.p., in the session of 

 1904." 



Now it may be presumed that the object of a 

 Government in appointing a committee to consider 

 and report upon a question, is to ascertain the kind 

 of legislation it is necessary to adopt in order to 

 remove admitted difficulties in connection with that 

 question. This Report contains a positive recom- 

 mendation stated in unqualified terms, and it remains 

 to be seen if it will be adopted and carried into law. 



Objections to the Land Purchase Bill were raised 

 in the Central Chamber of Agriculture to the effect 

 that tenants will not wish to buy their farms so long 

 as they can rent them. But they would not be 

 obliged to do so, as, like the Irish Act, there is 

 nothing compulsory in the Bill. The man who farms 

 from "hand to mouth," getting all he can out of 

 the land and putting as little as possible into it, 

 would most likely decline to buy. So also would the 

 man who farms (if it can be called farming) as "a 

 lodger," keeping on as long as he can, exhausting the 

 land.^ But it is difficult to believe that the real farmer, 



^ I was visiting a farmer of this class some time ago, and remarked on 

 the foul condition of the land. The reply I got was, " We drop the seed 

 into the ground and take what happens to come." This kind of farming 

 is too frequently to be met with. I have watched for some years past a 

 special case of this bad husbandry, and seen the process of deterioration 

 of the land. A farm of about 160 acres in a midland county, which used 

 to be in the hands of a good farmer, who had always from 50 to 60 acres 

 under cultivation, was about five years ago taken by a man of the class 

 referred to. Gradually the land was laid down into grass, and at the 



