70 LAND SETTLEMENT & EDUCATION 



a large demand for land on the part of ex-Service 

 men that it will not be practicable to satisfy it at 

 once, I would suggest that these men should receive 

 a promise of their holdings as soon as they can be 

 provided, and that in the meantime they should 

 be encouraged to work as labourers on large farms 

 and so acquire experience in the manual processes 

 of farming. Anywhere north of Peterborough the 

 wages are quite high enough to attract men if they 

 have this definite prospect before them. 



In a country which has done so little in the way 

 of land settlement it is quite remarkable to see the 

 extraordinary anxiety displayed by all and sundry 

 in keeping townsmen away from the land. They 

 seem to act on the belief that farming knowledge is 

 inherited. Our Dominions and the United States 

 hold rather different views. There one may find 

 many examples of men who were brought up to a 

 town life turning into most successful settlers. Since 

 this War began I have myself employed several 

 discharged Belgian soldiers, townsmen every one, 

 who have turned into first-class farm hands and 

 who are now qualified under guidance to take up 

 and work holdings of their own. 



There is really nothing more fallacious than to 

 think that the typical agricultural labourer, who 

 has worked all his life on a big farm, necessarily 

 makes a good small holder. The truth is that he has 

 been used to extensive cultivation, and is in con- 

 sequence less amenable to advice about intensive 

 methods than is the intelligent man who is not 

 weighed down by tradition and fettered by prejudice, 

 and therefore ready to do what he is told. 



It has been objected that in the one or two experi- 

 ments of which we have information, the settling of 



