194 PROBLEMS OF VILLAGE LIFE 



almost certainly have prevented the Bill from 

 becoming law, but the proviso that com- 

 pulsion could be applied in the case of County 

 Councils who failed in their duty helped to 

 reassure those who had worked for a genuine 

 instalment of rural reform. Such hopes 

 have proved illusory, and local Councils 

 have been allowed to thwart and delay the 

 administration of the Act or openly to defy the 

 Board of Agriculture. No county in England 

 is better adapted for the creation of small 

 holdings than Herefordshire. Nevertheless 

 not a single acre was acquired last year 

 (1912), and at present there exists an unsatis- 

 fied demand from ninety-eight applicants 

 for 2,906 acres. Such success as has been 

 achieved is due largely to the energy of a few 

 County Councils. Norfolk, Somerset, Cam- 

 bridge and Devon account for no less than 

 one-fifth of all the land acquired by the sixty- 

 three County Councils of England and Wales. 

 The progress officially claimed for the 

 Small Holdings Act is to some extent illusory, 

 for it appears that of the total number of 

 applicants in the first five years one-fifth have 

 been provided with land direct by private 

 landowners, in other words, by negotia- 

 tions which, however they may have been 

 encouraged or arranged by the Board of 



