STIRRINGS OF NEW LIFE. 171 



found necessary to support the ceilings of the downstairs 

 rooms ! 



' Do not stand there, sir," cried the housewife to me, as 

 I was walking round to one side of the bed, " you might fall 

 through. We always have to make the bed on this side." 



Yet there was one piece of property, on this derelict 

 farm, which was of value, and easily saleable at any time, 

 and that was the iron fence put up to divide the holdings. 

 It cost, I believe, half a crown a yard. On a small holder 

 complaining of the heavy cost of this fencing, the cynical 

 reply he received was : " Well, if the estate should fail, 

 we shall have something solid to sell." " I see," answered 

 the shrewd Dorset peasant. ' You mean to charge us, 

 then, with the rope with which you are going to hang us ? " 



I am glad to say my appeals to Mr. Runciman and the 

 Treasury, through members of the House of Commons, were 

 not in vain. Capital was expended on improving the 

 estate, and I understand that to-day Winterborne Zelston, 

 under war conditions of high prices, is flourishing. 



But Winterborne Zelston must not be taken as a typical 

 small holding estate. It was, fortunately, quite the worst 

 I have seen. 



Some County Councils, I am glad to say, showed a patri- 

 otic interest even before the War in acquiring desirable 

 sites for small holders. But in spite of these favourable 

 circumstances the lack of capital continually dogged the 

 footsteps of the skilled agricultural labourer. Only one in 

 three, or 32 per cent., of those who obtained small holdings, 

 were farm labourers. 1 



What really did militate against the working of the 

 Small Holdings Act, as well as the Local Government Act 

 of 1894, and the Housing and Town Planning Act of 1900, 

 was, as I have said, the absence of any organised rural 

 democracy. The County Councils were still the exclusive 

 preserve of the landed aristocracy, as the Rural District 

 Council was of the tenant-farmers. These two classes 

 were politically and economically one ; and though they 

 may not have had any organisation which differentiated 



1 C-i. 7851, 



