Legislative Action 151 



shire, where he was able to rent holdings from Lord Carrington, who 

 is strongly in favour of the modern revolution in methods of holding. 

 By 1904 the syndicate held 650 acres let to 200 tenants. Mr Winfrey 

 came to the conclusion that considering the price of land and the 

 general conditions of landownership the small man did best to rent 

 and not to buy his holding 1 . He only bought land even for the 

 associations when he found it impossible to obtain it on lease, as 

 in the case of his second foundation, the Norfolk Small Holdings 

 Association, which held 339 acres in 1904. Another similar under- 

 taking, in which Sir James Blyth and Mr J. H. Whitley took part, 

 was the Small Holdings Association of Newdigate in Surrey. This 

 association devoted itself to the creation of small properties, the area 

 to be from 3 to 25 acres. The purchaser had to pay down ten per 

 cent of the price, and then paid half-yearly instalments of capital and 

 interest, the rate of interest being five per cent, and the total capital 

 being paid off in ten to fifteen years 2 . Such co-operative procedure 

 has considerable advantages over either self-help or State effort in 

 the matter of the creation of peasant properties of larger or smaller 

 extent. An area of two or three hundred acres can be bought cheaper 

 than a single holding: and indeed many landlords who may be willing 

 to sell a good-sized slice of their property would not consent to alienate 

 a farm here and another there. As against the local authority, these 

 private associations have the advantage of being able to carry out the 

 necessary preliminary works, such as the erection of buildings, fencing, 

 drainage and so forth, at a much cheaper rate than a public body 3 . 

 It is a further advantage when these associations take from the 

 beginning a genuinely co-operative form, and bind their members 

 to common buying and marketing of goods. Nevertheless it seems 

 doubtful whether the fundamental difficulty of the cost of land can 

 be overcome even by co-operative purchase and other co-operative 

 or quasi-co-operative methods. According to the prospectus of the 

 Surrey Association, their land, though said to be bought well below 

 the market-price, cost 20 ^"30 an acre. Whether small men, unable 

 to save a great deal, and not having any profitable by-employment, 

 can pay such a price seems very problematic. It appears likely that 

 such associations will mainly benefit small shop-keepers, industrial 



1 Cp. also the views of another keen supporter of small farming, W. L. Charleton, in 

 Small Holdings and Co-operation, Newark, 1901, p. 10. 



2 Other similar associations were the Aylestone Co-operative Allotments Society Ltd. in 

 Leicestershire, and the Land Association Ltd. in Nottinghamshire, the latter being pro- 

 nouncedly co-operative in character. 



3 Bear, A Study etc., p. 86. 



