CHAPTER VI. 



SMALL HOLDINGS. 



THE recommendations hitherto made have been aimed 

 first at levelling up the standard of life of the la- 

 bourers on the land, and, secondly, at securing for the 

 community power OA r er the land itself. It is now time to fore- 

 shadow a policy of development under which the whole 

 position of agriculture would be transformed, and by which 

 the countryside would inherit, though in different conditions, 

 a double measure of its lost prosperity. It is hopeless 

 to expect any policy of development while the work of 

 agriculture is built upon sweated labour and an ill-fed 

 population, or while the fount of rural wealth is drained 

 by private interests. But, on the other hand, it is futile 

 to remove these obvious impediments, except as a pre- 

 paration for a definite national policy of land develop- 

 ment. Such a policy to be complete must give free access 

 to the land to all who desire it, and a fairer opportunity to 

 all who have the access now ; must create order out of the 

 chaos and muddle that stamps the production and distribu- 

 tion of our agricultural produce ; and must organise and 

 bend to the service of the nation the full energies of the 

 labourer, the small holder, the large farmer, and the State 

 as well. 



§1. The Case for Small Holdings. 



At the time of the Norman Conquest, and for some cen- 

 turies after, the whole of the peasantry — generally speaking — ■ 

 owned or occupied land. But in the thirteenth century,* 

 and perhaps earlier, the great economic movement com- 

 monly called the Enclosure of Commons began, and con- 

 tinued for over 600 years, until by 1850 it was practically 



* Statute of Merton, 1235. 



