THE CO-OPERATIVE COLONY 59 



buildings, fencing, roads, etc., necessitated by the multi- 

 plicity of holdings. 



Nevertheless, as small holdings are justified by their 

 social advantages, as they respond to certain real if not 

 universal factors in human nature, the State may be 

 expected after the war to continue and extend its former 

 policy of promoting their creation and financing their 

 establishment out of public funds. Having gone so far 

 and because the security for its loans depends upon the 

 prosperity of the holders, the State should even in its 

 own interest go a stage further and divide up no estate 

 into small holdings without at the same time setting 

 up an organization for co-operative working, which 

 alone can enable the small farmer to compete with the 

 large producer. 



The setting up of the machinery for sale and purchase 

 and for technical guidance should precede or at least 

 be contemporaneous with the settlement of the small 

 holdings, so that the occupier finds it in being when he 

 takes up his land. Otherwise he is liable to waste much 

 of his small capital by injudicious purchases before he 

 has acquired experience, and again he forms trading 

 connections which he finds difficult to break when at 

 some later period the organization of a co-operative 

 society is attempted in his district. The grip of the 

 trader who has given credit to the small holder or farmer 

 paralyses his already limited powers of buying and 

 selling to advantage ; one of the functions of the co- 

 operative societies will be to give their members the 

 legitimate credits they may require in a form less 

 perilous to their independence. 



If, however, the co-operative society is to come into 

 existence at the same time as the small holdings, it will 



