44 THE ERRORS OF THE PAST 



On the other side there is the school which sees 

 in the small holding the true economic unit of the 

 future and looks forward to the day when there will 

 be no more large estates and farms, but a network 

 of small holdings and market gardens covering the 

 whole of England. 



Both schools are partly right, and partly wrong, 

 for the truth lies half-way : in certain districts 

 where certain conditions obtain the large farms 

 are the most economic units, while in other districts 

 it is the small holding on suitable land, properly 

 farmed by the right type of men and under proper 

 conditions, which constitutes the most economic unit. 



4: 4: 4e « 4( 



An argument frequently advanced is that since 

 the large factory is more economic than the small 

 factory therefore the large farm must be more 

 economic than the small. As a statement this 

 sounds highly impressive, but as an argument it 

 has too many flaws : its premiss is too sweeping ; 

 the deduction is consequently wrong ; and it com- 

 pares things which in their nature are not compar- 

 able, since one works with forces of Nature and the 

 living organism, and the other with mechanical 

 force and dead matter. 



It is not the case in all industries that large 

 factories are more economic than small factories. 

 There certainly has been a tendency in all industries 

 towards the estabhshment of large and still larger 

 factories, but this tendency was soon arrested in 

 all those industries which demanded from their 

 workers a certain degree of skill ; and only continued 

 in those where the worker is a mere "hand" — 

 a human automaton making the %th part of a 



