SMALL HOLDINCxS. 347 



in quite exceptional cases — by advances of money. It 

 employs its credit instead. The Depolonising Commission 

 operated ^\ith cash and lost heavily. Certain setthng 

 operations in India conducted on similiar lines, with money 

 advanced, have likewise more or less failed. Mr. Jesse 

 Collings's scheme, put forward some six or seven years 

 ago, in which it was proposed that the State should pay 

 the vendor in cash, was openly laughed at, on that very 

 ground, by Prussian " old hands." The State's interference 

 in the province of finance, so it was firmly held, must be 

 Hmited to credit, made properly secure. Its taking over 

 the legal and technical work faciHtates arrangements 

 exceedingly and the demand for restriction of financial 

 interference by credit makes the exercise of patience — such 

 as in the matter of repayment, is to the settler's interest — 

 considerably easier. We have in this country stickled for 

 comparatively short terms for terminable rent charge. 

 It is only a few years ago that we extended the period in 

 certain cases to eighty years. In France, in respect of the 

 small sums advanced for the acquisition of land under the 

 measure of 1910, the time is still hmited to only twenty-five 

 years. But then, in France, with its provident habits and 

 its Malthusianism, the has de laine, is a great institution, 

 which provides money freely. In Italy people are content 

 with a term of only twenty-three years. 



Prussia began at once with 56y'T5^ and 6o| years, according 

 to the rate of sinking fund charged, which of course affects 

 the allowable length of time. In truth, wherever the 

 financial help given takes the shape of paper, there is no 

 earthly reason why a very long time should not be permitted. 

 For the critical period, if there is one, is the earliest stage, 

 not the latest. The earliest stage passed, the purchaser 

 has staked quite sufficient to make it his own interest not 

 to make default. In the words of the late Herr Beutner, 

 President of the " General Commission " in Posen and 

 Western Prussia, " once a man stakes his all upon the 

 venture, he is not likely to play me false." That remark 

 applied to the case of a man who had put his Hfe's savings 

 of about ;^6o into his little holding. Add to this that the 



