188 PROBLEMS OF VILLAGE LIFE 



twenty-five years' purchase (a high estimate 

 in itself), have been bought for 28 15s. an 

 acre : the valuer fixed the price at 47 ! 

 Over and over again, land let to a farmer 

 has, when used for small holdings, been let 

 for more than double the original rent. It is 

 true that in some cases the farmer's rent was 

 an average one for all his fields, good, bad and 

 indifferent, whereas the small-holders' plots 

 were taken from the good land only. But 

 when we have made all allowances for this 

 and for a certain enhancement in rent charged 

 for " accommodation land," the fact still 

 remains that small-holders have frequently 

 been exposed through the weakness of the Act 

 or the unsympathetic attitude of the central 

 or local administrators to rent-charges so 

 unreasonably high as to militate against their 

 success from the start. 



It is difficult to see on what grounds the 

 advocates of the " freehold " solution find 

 encouragement from Continental analogies. 

 It is doubtless true that the majority of the 

 rural inhabitants of Europe own the soil 

 which they cultivate. Nevertheless the magic 

 of property has often lost its glamour under 

 the pressure of bad seasons and the money- 

 lender. In many parts of Norway it is 

 difficult to find a small farm which is free 



