SMALL HOLDINGS 55 



instruction, supervision, and a business organisation 

 for bujdng and selling can be arranged. But they 

 also recommended that the Small Holdings Act should 

 be amended in order to enable men to acquire holdings 

 who are not prepared to join one of the colonies, or 

 who want accommodation holdings to be worked in 

 conjunction with some other business. 



The Committee were impressed by the almost 

 complete lack of any business organisation among 

 small holders. " It demonstrates," they say, ** a 

 degree of economic waste that would ruin any other 

 industry." No wonder, then, that it is usual to talk 

 of small holdings as "a failure." A man with a 

 minute purchasing power, and with no means but 

 what he can provide himself of marketing his produce, 

 cannot possibly compete with the large farmer. He 

 is beaten even before he begins. Yet because men 

 have failed freely in isolated small holdings — too often 

 on land quite unsuitable for their purpose — we are 

 told that small holdings " never pay." 



The Committee insisted on the importance of this 

 matter of co-operation and the disposal of produce. 

 They say : 



" In the case of perishable products like fruit and 

 vegetables, it is obvious that it is no use encouraging 

 small holders to produce them unless they can be 

 marketed at a profit. We do not consider it essential 

 that a fruit and market-garden colony should be in 

 close proximity to a large town, though efficient 

 arrangements for access by rail or motor to good 

 markets are obviously essential. What is needed is 

 some organisation by which the produce of the colony 



