114 THE LAND AND ITS PROBLEMS 



been regarded and administered as a " Home Settlement 

 Act " ; Sweden shows us what can be done in that 

 direction in an old country. 



From start to finish no thought was given as to how, 

 and under what conditions, the men should be placed 

 upon the land ; and, even worse, no thought was given 

 to the 230,000 existing smallholders and the need of 

 improving their condition ! Our land " reformers," 

 chiefly townsmen, with their parrot-like cry of " access 

 to the land," were too lazy to study the problem of small 

 holding settlement, or to see for themselves the results 

 of organized settlement in countries where the right 

 system had been adopted. 



The motto should have been " make good before you 

 extend " ; and had the Government, acting upon this 

 principle, set out in the first place to organize the existing 

 smallholders and to create for them conditions as good 

 as exist in other countries, the nation would then have 

 realized the economic and social possibilities of small 

 holdings. And newly established smallholders would 

 have been joining a highly organized and flourishing 

 community. In fact, if this course had been adopted, 

 the small holding section would have increased and 

 developed as a natural consequence ; there would have 

 been sound growth, instead of artificial growth. 



All this is not only a case of " should have been," it 

 is the practical issue of what " can be " to-day, and this 

 side is of greater importance than ever before. We wish 

 to increase the yield of the land : the yield of the existing 

 small holdings can be enormously increased. 



At the present time it is impossible to create new 

 small holdings on an economic basis, for the cost of 

 building and equipment is prohibitive ; let us, therefore, 

 concentrate on the existing small holdings. This is 



