Necessary Conditions 



that is not based on ownership, but the 

 ownership is not necessarily absolute owner- 

 ship, conditions are attached. On the one 

 hand provision must be made against undue 

 subdivision of the land, and on the other to 

 prevent any one man buying up a number of 

 small holdings. Conditions in regard to the 

 standard of cultivation should also be enforced. 

 The importance of making the initial years 

 as easy as possible financially, while the small 

 holder is finding his feet, would seem to be so 

 obvious as hardly to require stating, but in 

 actual practice in England the newly settled 

 small holder has to make heavier annual pay- 

 ments during his first years, than later on when, 

 presumably, he has become more firmly and 

 successfully established. Again, there is 

 much misapprehension in this country in 

 regard to affording facilities for borrowing. 

 The evil system of the perpetual mortgage 

 has been so universal, and its bad effects 

 have been so widely felt, that people think it 

 would be unwise and dangerous for a small 

 farmer to be able to borrow money. But 

 this is not so when the loan is for a short 

 period and a sinking fund is a sine qua non. 



105 



