350 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



liigher rate up to the end of the first twenty years and 

 after that proportionally less. Seventeen of them have, 

 as already mentioned, selected this latter mode of payment. 

 One of the eighteen went bankrupt. But the estate lost 

 not a penny by his bankruptcy. There was another man 

 ready, only too ready, to step into the bankrupt man's place, 

 taking over all his liabilities. 



Here we have a practical solution of the small holdings 

 problem, which by its success disposes of all doubts and 

 fears with which that problem has been hitherto thought 

 to be surrounded, so as to bar progress. It shows not only 

 that people are willing to buy, but also that, if you will 

 only be careful to select none but fit men — which cannot be 

 done by Whitehall red tape, in a mechanical way — you may 

 with impunity be bold in your fitting of the transaction to 

 the circumstances of the small buyers. The Maulden 

 transaction was intended as a pioneer experiment to teach 

 the Government how to proceed. The teacher in the case 

 is now master of the situation. So one may hope to see 

 past timidity laid aside and a bolder policy pursued. 



There are still, however, various objections raised to 

 the creation of small holdings, of which it will be well to 

 take note. 



The first is, that a small holdings policy is supposed 

 not to be compatible with wheat growing, which for the 

 moment is much too exclusively accepted as the test of 

 good husbandry. For normal conditions it is a wrong test 

 altogether. Farming is a business and its object must be, 

 not to produce any one particular article, but, once the 

 sea is open again and freed from the piracy of those who 

 make the " freeing " of it a pretext for free brigandage, the 

 greatest possible value per acre. That was Sir James 

 Caird's advice. And from a national point of view, seeing 

 how great trouble we sometimes have in dealing with the 

 unemployed — in the teeth of the opinion long held among 

 farmers — the requirement of much labour, giving employ- 

 ment to many people, is an advantage to it, and not a 

 drawback. In normal times it will be best business to leave 

 wheat growing to those who can grow it most cheaply — 



