THE RURAL PROBLEM 



59 



Why has more not been accomplished ? Because county 

 councils arc mainly composed of landowning and farming 

 classes, who, as a general rule, are hostile to progressive 

 legislation. Very little interest is taken by country people 

 in local elections ; many of the seats are never contested. 

 Landowners fear the formation of an independent class of 

 working men and women. Farmers fear their best labourers 

 will become small holders and prove rivals; also that wages 

 will go up. Then there is the prohibitive price demanded 

 for land.* Cases are known where big landowners are 

 co-opted on small holdings committees. They offer their 

 land for small holdings at rents two or three times in excess 

 of present figures. Lack of capital makes it often impossible 

 for applicants to pay outgoing tenants for unexhausted 

 improvements or to stock the small holdings. Men living 



* On a rough average the County Council of Dorsetshire charges to 

 the small holder double the rent paid by the farmer, sometimes more. 

 All small holders pay the County Council 15 per cent, for working 

 expenses. Heath lands in Dorsetshire have been applied for and 

 could be reclaimed ; but they should be let free at a nominal rent for 

 the first few years, whereas the County Council asks £2 an acre. The 

 higher rent charged for land let as small holdings is well shown in a 

 paper read by Mr. Lester Smith, the Oxford County land agent, before 

 the County Land Agents' Society, in which he gives the following 

 examples of increases in the lent of from 61 per cent, up to as much 

 as 158 per cent. : 



(1) Land Leased Voluntarily. 



(2) Land Leased Compulsorily {Parts of Large Farms). 



