A SYSTEM OF COLONIES 57 



Danish farming is a triumph for small holdings, 

 but the victory has come through co-operation. We 

 must have a real test, not a sham one, before we have 

 a shadow of right to talk of failure in England. As 

 a matter of fact, where small holders in England have 

 congregated together on suitable soil, have chosen 

 the right sort of farming and have improved their 

 machinery of distribution, they are already prospering, 

 as at Evesham and elsewhere. 



Ill 



A SYSTEM OF COLONIES 



Expert agricultural advice for beginners was con- 

 sidered by the Committee to be as important as 

 business organisation. Obviously neither the one 

 nor the other can be provided except where the small 

 holders are grouped together. A system of colonies 

 is obviously the only one under which the State can 

 manage small holdings, and that opinion has, of 

 course, been acted on in the Government's scheme for 

 providing three colonies in accordance with the Com- 

 mittee's minimum recommendation. Moreover, in 

 colonies there will be a prospect of that social life for 

 which soldiers and sailors have acquired a discriminat- 

 ing taste. It would be futile to turn a man with the 

 social habit into an anchorite, and then tell him to 

 reflect upon the joys of rural life. 



A community of at least a hundred families, in- 

 cluding those engaged in trades subsidiary to agricul- 

 ture, was regarded as the best size for a colony. 

 Subsidiary trades are an important point, as the 

 5* 



