CHAPTER VII 



SMALL HOLDINGS 



A concerted attack has been made lately upon 

 certain peers who own miles of country, and 

 refuse to hand it out to labourers or allotment 

 holders. Taking the flourishing Fen-holders as a 

 text, writers inveigh against such tyrannous 

 obstruction to the prosperity of a country-side, 

 and preach compulsory sale or nationalization. 

 They look on the landowner as an arbitrary 

 despot, a mysterious and inhuman tyrant, a 

 casting back to feudal days in all its worst features. 

 But, curiously enough, when the landlord is 

 examined, he turns out to be an ordinary mortal 

 with but common feelings, and, with a few 

 exceptions, anxious to dispose of his land to the 

 best advantage. Where he can let it profitably 

 in small parcels, it is already done; where it pays 

 better to let in large farms, he will do so. In the 

 latter case small holdings are economically im- 

 possible: except on good soil they cannot exist, 

 and whilst the prosperous small holder is honest 

 and industrious, on poor soil he has to struggle 



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