FREEHOLD COTTAGES AND LAND. 167 



sought to put this system into force. Speaking at 

 Birmingham in September 1909, Mr. Balfour said : 



" I have always been one of those who have ardently 

 desired to see, and yet hope to see, the ownership of agri- 

 cultural land and to see it distributed in an incomparably 

 greater number of hands than it is now. There is no 

 measure with which I am more proud to have been connected 

 than that of giving peasant ownership in such large measure 

 to Ireland, and I hope to see a great extension of such 

 ownership in England. Nothing can be more desirable 

 and important. . . . Depend upon it, it is not so very easy 

 or light a task to make a living out of a small holding in 

 this country, unless that small holding be a specially 

 favourably situated one. But what, you say, can you make 

 an appeal to, to make these holdings a success ? A feeling 

 of ownership and nothing else." 



The last sentence is a pregnant one, and Mr. Balfour's 

 view is incontrovertible. It may be argued that a 

 feeling is a matter of sentiment, but it is sentiment of a 

 kind that exercises the most powerful of all influences. 

 It is a selfish sentiment, perhaps, but selfishness largely 

 rules the world ; and, after all, the sentiment or selfish- 

 ness is directed to an object which, though it may most 

 of all benefit the individual, also, though indirectly, 

 must benefit the community. A large number of small 

 holders striving by might and main to get the utmost 

 farthing of profit out of tillage of the soil can only 

 succeed by selling the produce of their labour. The 

 mere numbers must bring about competition that will 

 automatically reduce the price, and that is where the 

 community must benefit ; and in the struggle for the 

 market which is a huge one the producer's benefit 

 will be quick returns, and quick returns will compensate 

 him for small profits. The community, moreover, will 

 secure the enormous benefit which must arise by the 

 retention of the energetic producer who would in the 

 absence of inducement to him at home go abroad and 

 give the advantage of his persistent energy to foreign 

 countries. 



Writing on 25th October 1909, in a preface to Sir 



