CHAPTER XV. 



Small Holdings. 



As the chapter in the Majority Report dealing with 

 this subject seems somewhat incomplete, and to present 

 too strongly the less favourable view of small holdings, 

 some further extracts from the evidence and reports is 

 here appended, with some further conclusions and 

 recommendations. 



It is to be regretted that the Commission did not take 

 directly the evidence of representatives of occupying 

 owners or tenants of small holdings. But a large amount 

 of evidence of this nature was collected by several of 

 the Assistant Commissioners, and especially by Mr 

 Wilson Fox, Mr Pringle, and Mr Rew. 



An obvious and initial difficulty in arriving at just 

 conclusions on this topic is due to the still prevalent 

 lack of sympathy with, and insight as to, the aims and 

 methods of small farming. Among the large farmers 

 and land agents, there is still a reluctance to recognise 

 the economic function which land reformers naturally 

 attribute to small holdings. Small holdings and job 

 labour naturally go together. And the majority of the 

 large farmers do not seem yet to realise what the 

 systematic development of allotment and small holdings 

 can do for agriculture, in maintaining on the spot a per- 

 manent supply of efficient and skilled labour. 



In my opinion, labour cannot be much longer organised 

 on the old lines — at any rate to the extent common in 

 the " seventies " and the " eighties." Labour must 

 necessarily become more independent, and the natural 

 relations between the big farmer hiring labour and the 

 labourer must tend to become more elastic. Labour can 



