LAND TENURE AND LAND POLICY 68 1 



218. THE SMALL HOLDINGS MOVEMENT IN ENGLAND 1 

 BY C. R. FAY 



England has felt the agricultural competition of the United States 

 for nearly fifty years and of Canada, Argentina, and Australasia during 

 the latter part of that period. Other countries of Western Europe 

 have felt it no less than England, but they were better able to meet 

 it, because from the beginning they had a strong peasant proprietary. 

 This was particularly suited to the growing of the small products of 

 the farm, such as vegetables, fruit, poultry, milk, and pigs, and 

 because it was to these products that the trend of international agri- 

 culture was more and more inclining in Western Europe. In England 

 we have, indeed, always had some small farms, but at the time of the 

 agricultural enclosures of a century ago, the small yeoman class, pre- 

 served on the Continent by special legislation, was squeezed out of 

 existence, as a compact body, by the harshness of the enclosure acts. 



A recent law in England, the Small Holdings and Allotments Acts 

 of 1907, now superseded by the consolidating Act of 1908, is aiming 

 to increase the number of small farmers. The Act of 1908 provided 

 for the acquisition of land by the County Councils (through compul- 

 sory purchase, if need be), to be relet by them to suitable tenants in 

 small holdings and allotments of from i to 50 acres. The tenants 

 have power to purchase, but they have rarely used the power. It 

 also encourages the formation of co-operative small holdings and allot- 

 ments associations on the one hand, and of co-operative trading 

 societies and credit banks on the other. 



That the act is bearing fruit may be judged from these facts: 

 first, that in April, 1908, applications had been made for land amount- 

 ing to 167,000 acres; second, that since the passing of the act 130 

 small holdings and allotments associations have been created, of 

 which 10 were in possession of land in July, 1909. 



219. LAND REFORM IN TEXAS 2 

 BY LEWIS H. HANEY 



We argue it as though our only choice lay between abolishing 

 tenancy altogether and a continuous increase in tenancy as at present. 

 But tenancy is partly bad and partly good, and it is not desirable that 

 all farmers should always own the farms they work. There are many 



1 Adapted from Quarterly Journal of Economics, XXIV (May, 1910), 500-501. 



2 Adapted from Bulletin of the University of Texas, 1915, No. 39, pp. 5-11. 



