222 



The greater the quantity of household effects & 

 man possesses, the lesser the tendency to move. A no- 

 madic population does not benefit a modern State nor 

 can any State prosper which holds, as Argentina does. 

 such a high percentage of unmarried men. Generally 

 speaking, unmarried men are useless to the State no* 

 matter what high positions they are called upon to fill. 

 The true interest of the State was outlined, with un- 

 conscious irony, by Carl Marx: the proletariat produc- 

 tive and prolific. The present system of only employing 

 unmarried men in the camp is noxious to the best in- 

 terests of the country, although practically speaking it 

 is the only resource the " estanciero ' ? has, for it limit> 

 his expenses, and he thus attains the maximum of lab- 

 our from the men he employs. 



The unmarried men can find no place in the mo- 

 dern theory of a progressive state, much less in >ne 

 whose motto is " Poblar es Gobernar. r - 



There are insufficient colonists in this country to- 

 farm {he land and not one tenth of it is farmed on real- 

 ly economical lines, such as are common to Europe 



Farming is a complicated thing that requires some* 

 years of practice, if we seek to run it on really modern 

 lines and utilize waste products. 



For this our farmers must be educated up slowly. 



In England, practically the whole Agricultural 

 land is cultivated by persons who hire it for a limited 

 time from the owners. 



In the United States only 10 per cent, of the land 

 is hired : the land occupied and farmed by the owners 

 is approximately 60 per cent, of the total cultivated - 



Small holdings are not in themselves necessarily 

 economical- Unless they are run on proper lines they 

 are no more profitable than exploitation on large exten- 

 sive lines. On the contrary, there is a limit below which 

 it is not possible to economically reduce the extension 

 of a farm. 



"L'ATIFUNDIO AND SMALL HOLDINGS 



On a big estate where there is a good land owner,. 

 who resides on his estate and who reserves himself the 

 right to supervise his tenants and demands a certain 

 grade of cultivation, the results are superior to the 

 same estate farmed indifferently by a number of small 

 farmers, or tenant-owners. This is exemplified in Rus- 

 sia, where the breaking up of the large estates has been 

 accompanied from the very first with reduced produc- 

 tion. 



