48 Agriculture and the Community. 



demand comes from men in industries or non-agricultural 

 trades — tradesmen, miners, and sailors. In most cases 

 applicants have made their money not in, but outside 

 agriculture." The facts here adduced may surprise those 

 who are fond of talking about the "agricultural ladder," 

 the first rungs of which are meant to be small holdings, 

 but to anyone in close touch with the agricultural workers, 

 and whose knowledge of the small holdings campaign is 

 gained at closer quarters than the politicians ever reach, 

 the conclusions of the investigators are known to be well 

 founded. The agricultural ladder does not offer an 

 effective way of escape for the farm worker. It is obvious 

 why it should be so. A small holder must have possession 

 of some capital, more than most people imagine, if he is 

 going to make a successful venture, and the possibility 

 of farm workers saving the necessary capital from their 

 inadequate earnings is too remote to stir to effort. Con- 

 sidered from the point of view of providing a means of 

 improving the lot of the farm workers, small holdings 

 offer no hopeful line of advance. Even if the obstacles 

 Avhich have tended to discourage the farm workers from 

 seeking that way of escape in the past could be removed, 

 a little consideration will show that small holdings can 

 never offer any hope to the large mass of the farm workers. 

 Even if we include in the number of small holdings those 

 which cannot occupy a man full time, and which are used 

 to supplement earnings in other directions, and suppose 

 that they are all occupied by those who are or have been 

 farm workers, a supposition very wide of the mark, not 

 more than 4 per cent, of farm workers have been given 

 the opportunity of becoming small holders. Mr. Arthur 



