SMALL HOLDINGS 189 



from mortgage debts. M. Leconteur, the 

 French professor of Rural Economy, states 

 that three million proprietors of French soil 

 are on the pauper roll, and 600,000 so poor 

 that they are practically unable to bear any 

 form of taxation. According to Mr. Rowland 

 Prothero, one of our best informed writers on 

 agricultural topics, " the French peasant 

 proprietor is in general worse housed and 

 worse fed than the English labourer." Baron 

 Sournino declares that " in Italy, that portion 

 of the rural population that does not seek 

 exile, plunges deeper into misery day by day.'* 

 In Denmark, the small farmers have incurred 

 a grievous burden of mortgage debts to the 

 sum of 60,000,000 no less than 55 per cent, 

 of the total value of their lands, houses, stock 

 and implements. Even in England itself 

 Mr. Wilson Fox reports that " the general 

 conditions of the small freeholders in the 

 East of Lincolnshire is that they are working 

 like slaves to earn interest for money-lenders.' 

 The record of the County Councils with 

 reference to housing demands is equally 

 unsatisfactory. There has been no genuine 

 effort to carry out the " housing " clauses of 

 the Act. The 1909 Report declares that 

 " very few of the applicants are willing to 

 move from their immediate neighbourhood." 



