A FULL REWARD FOR THE TILLER. 389 



ownership and progress are fondly remembered by those 

 who love Agriculture. Will it not be well to bring them 

 back again ? There are no insuperable hindrances in the 

 way. 



And particular attention wants to be called to one recom- 

 mendation of the " freeland " system which a writer in 

 the Quarterly Review of April, 1917, dealing with " The 

 Rural Prosperity of France," Miss Spedding, does well to 

 notice and which ought to be of interest to ourselves at the 

 present time, when we complain of our Agriculture remain- 

 ing in a hidebound state, under a system which has grown 

 altogether out of harmony with present, altered conditions. 

 " The advantages of a free land system," so writes Miss 

 Spedding, " are strikingly displayed in the manner in which 

 it is adapting itself to new conditions. Throughout France, 

 to-day, agricultural decentralisation is taking place at a 

 rapid rate, for the large landowner, unable to obtain sufficient 

 labour to work his land properly, finds it advisable to sell 

 or split up his property into small holdings. The great 

 increase in the number of small holdings does much to 

 counterbalance, in rural France, the loss of labour." That 

 reflects, above all, of course, upon the Small Holdings 

 policy which we ought to be pursuing. But it has, as I 

 know from observation in other countries, where the " free 

 land " system likewise prevails, a most beneficial, furthering 

 effect, favouring progress, also in the case of properties of 

 larger size. It is freedom of land which permits freedom 

 of action. And without freedom of action we cannot get 

 out of our anachronistic old rut. 



One reason why a transformation in the sense here 

 sketched has not long since begun to take place among our- 

 selves, undoubtedly is this, that the transfer of land under 

 present conditions presents many difficulties and is costly, 

 and that " rural credits," as the Americans — earnestly 

 bent, under their different conditions, upon securing such 

 — call them, are practically non-existent in this island, in 

 the sense in which Continental countries know and profit 

 by them. " Rural Credits," however, if we are to have 

 occupying owners, we must needs procure for ourselves, or 



