SMALL HOLDINGS. 327 



is certainly strongly Liberal, though conservative in the 

 non-poHtical sense. And in Germany it is just those parts 

 in which small ownership is largely represented which are 

 the most Liberal, the most free in the formation and utter- 

 ance of their opinions, and the most independent in their 

 ideas. In 1848 and 1849 it took only a few days to squash 

 revolution in Berlin and Dresden. It took an entire cam- 

 paign under the leadership of the late Emperor William 

 to stifle it in Baden. There are people who connect small 

 holdings with the " ladder," and would carry that well 

 down, by the creation of even diminutive holdings — among 

 larger ones — to the very ground. The Roman heredium, 

 considered large enough to occupy and support one family, 

 contained only one acre and a quarter. There are other 

 people — the party at the present moment apparently 

 predominating — who would create only holdings big enough 

 to support a family doing all or nearly all the work of its 

 cultivation, but nothing more. 



Then there are would-be reformers who appear scarcely 

 familiar with rural conditions. In their view the conditions 

 under which a rural cultivator works correspond exactly 

 to those of an industrial working man or small jobbing 

 tradesman in a town, who can walk into the workshop 

 to-day, do his work, and go out a year hence or at any time, 

 having all his gains to the last penny in his pocket and 

 leaving the workshop just as he found it. There are agri- 

 cultural men, no doubt, who under appropriate conditions 

 can act in something like that way — make the most of a 

 small holding till they are in a position to move to a larger 

 and so, in course of time, to become wealthy, by changing 

 from place to place. And very useful men such competent 

 cultivators are. However, most of those whom it is now 

 desired and seems desirable to attract see in their proposed 

 holding very much more than a mere temporary workshop. 

 They see in it an abiding home, to be perfected and em- 

 belHshed bit by bit, by their labour, to become dear to their 

 children and go down to those children ; and they also see 

 in it a savings bank, into which all spare efforts and spare 

 pence at their disposal may be put, with a certainty of 



