lOii AGRICULTURE AND TARIFF REFORM. 



Small Holdings. 



A sufficient remedy for agricultural depression 

 is, we are told, to adopt the small holdings sys- 

 tem ; and here, fortunately, we have had a some- 

 what unique experience. 



There is no stronger advocate of the small 

 holdings system than the writer who, under the 

 auspices of the Rural Labourers' League, of 

 which he is Secretary, and of which the Right 

 Honourable Jesse Collings, M.P., is the President, 

 has assisted working men to take advantage of 

 the Acts passed for their benefit. These Acts 

 are the Allotments Extension Act, 1882, the 

 Allotments Acts, 1887 and 1890, the Local 

 Government Act, 1894, and the Small Holdings 

 Act, 1892, It is not likely, therefore, that we 

 should altogether adversely criticise the small 

 holdings system. 



When, however, we are asked to cut up all 

 our large farms and to make them into small 

 holdings, we say the thing is both impracticable 

 and undesirable. 



It is impracticable because, in the first place, 

 we have not the population to immediately put 

 on such holdings, and landowners have not the 

 money to erect the necessary huge increase of 

 farm buildings which would be required ; and, 

 in the second place, a good deal of the land in 

 most counties in England is, on the score of its 

 distance from a station and its quality, unsuit- 

 able for the successful conduct of small holdings. 



