THE NATURAL MAN 249 



nation is not durable. Writing of this some years 

 ago, I put the smallholder into two classes, the 

 Natural Smallholder and the Artificial Smallholder. 1 

 The natural smallholder must, hi the main, come 

 through the roughs. He must find and seize his 

 chances. As I say, you cannot make this man by 

 Act of Parliament. He makes himself. I have no 

 politics in thought, saying this, at least not politics 

 in the more restricted sense ; and, if it were possible 

 to bring into being smallholders worth the name by 

 State creation, I would wish to see the State pass- 

 ing many Acts to this end. But it is unthinkable 

 in England to-day. When the scientist learns to 

 build up a man in his study out of elements of life 

 and matter, the State, by Act of Parliament, may 

 make of that new man a successful smallholder 

 or artist, or doctor, or statesman not before. Some- 

 thing can be done by the State to turn the efforts 

 and serious thoughts of people towards the work 

 anxious, hard, and excellent of making themselves 

 independent through the soil. 2 But we have to bear 

 hi mind that this aid is a trifle in the struggle for 

 success; and that, if you try to make more than a 

 trifle of it, the end must be blank failure. To undo 

 character by well-meant, ill-thought Act of Parlia- 

 ment may not be easy but it is the easiest thing 

 to discourage the forming of it. 



1 I think this is Lord Rosebery's description too. 

 a It is being done now. 



