134 CONCLUSION 



good farmers alone can hope to benefit under 

 a scheme which would insure for them 

 absolute freedom for their farming operations 

 without an amendment of the present law 

 of tenure, eliminate the anxiety of oppres- 

 sive terms on a forced purchase of their 

 holdings, and obviate the possibility of giving 

 a sentimental price to a grasping landlord, 

 which is rare, or to land speculators engaged 

 in the profitable but somewhat ignoble practice 

 of buying up whole estates and selling to 

 sitting tenants at the highest price obtainable. 

 But the small occupier can only be created on 

 the basis of " ownership " ; and it is " owner- 

 ship " which will help to solve the all -im- 

 portant responsibility, that agriculture has 

 failed to fulfil, in the prospects and exist- 

 ence presented to those the industry em- 

 ploys. Real prosperity can never be expected 

 while the life and opportunities offered to 

 farm workers are so unattractive as to 

 drive them to seek employment in any other 

 country or profession than the one to which 

 they were born. In almost every district 

 farmers can tell how it is only the old men, 

 who are in the fields, or the boys or dullards. 



