166 PROBLEMS OF VILLAGE LIFE 



secure small holdings, or the value of these 

 under favourable conditions. Nevertheless 

 the whole course of the movement is strewn 

 with the wreckage of failure. So deeply rooted 

 is our national veneration for vested interests, 

 even when these are founded on past wrong- 

 doing and present menace to the community : 

 so potent is the influence of our landed classes, 

 that no legislation has yet succeeded in making 

 any sensible impression on the land monopoly 

 of rural England. 



The ignorance or indifference of our urban 

 populations as regards rural matters, the 

 open hostility of the farmers, the apathy or dis- 

 like of landowners and land-agents all these 

 factors have been brought to bear against 

 the success of a small holdings policy. One 

 is constantly met in country districts by the 

 assertion that small-holders cannot succeed 

 in England, a verdict which seems paradoxical 

 enough in view of the facts of British 

 colonization. The same people who regard 

 our village poor as inherently incapable of 

 managing a bit of land are the first to extol 

 and even exaggerate the efficiency, and pros- 

 perity of this very class when it comes to 

 emigration. These same men, we are told, do 

 wonders in New Zealand or Australia. They 

 can earn a good living after stubbing up tree 



