4o6 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



influenced, to their own injury, by interested parties — not 

 only solicitors, to whom of course the business of investi- 

 gating titles and arranging transfers and mortgage loans 

 are richly yielding milch cows, but also habitual lenders 

 upon mortgage, such as, in the shape of insurance companies, 

 stand most hinderingly in the way in the United States 

 — parties who look upon this business as their own private 

 preserve. Obviously it was a mistake on the part of 

 Parliament to entrust the decision as to application for 

 the requisite powers to those habitual tJiviti canes (unwilHng 

 hounds, which will not hunt) the County Councils. They 

 have disappointed public opinion in more matters than one. 

 The establishment of order in our modern Domesday hold- 

 ings is a matter of too great national importance, too great 

 importance to Agriculture and to country life, to admit 

 of its being left to such resisting hands. The Land Transfer 

 Act has had a twenty years' life and produced no result. 

 It is time that other steps were taken. Parliament has 

 shown that it sets store by the use of the Register. For it 

 has made registration obligatory in the case of land dealt 

 with under the Small Holdings Act of 1908. Why not 

 make it obligatory for all property throughout the land, or 

 at any rate leave the decision on that point to the Privy 

 Council ? General registration would be a boon to the 

 country and it would fit admirably into J\lr. Lloyd George's 

 registration of values, with a view to a possible levy of 

 land tax. 



Obviously purely optional registration is at best only a 

 half-measure — in truth very much less than that — bringing 

 benefit undoubtedly to individual landowners, but not to 

 Agriculture or the Nation at large. The Nation has ex- 

 pressed its desire to see Agriculture made more productive. 

 That is only to be done with the help of a large command 

 of money. And that money requires to be raised. 



Another measure necessary for this purpose is a 

 considerable increase in the number of landowners occupying 

 severally smaller estates with greater freedom in farming, 

 presumably a larger command of working capital, and a 

 promise given them of a full reward for their labour, intelli- 



