CHAPTER VIII 



Agricultural Credit 



Access to Capital is as important as Access 

 to Land- 



When a certain section of politicians and 

 semi-politicians began to agitate in favour of 

 a "back to the land" policy which resulted 

 in the Small Holdings Act of 1908, they 

 approached the question with a preconceived 

 idea in their minds. The land of England 

 was being held up by the landowners, who 

 did not want to sell, and who did not want 

 more people on the land, and the one 

 thing needful was to give people what they 

 were pleased to call "access to land," and 

 then to leave them alone. They overlooked 

 the other factor, really of equal importance, 

 viz. the providing of the would-be settler 

 with access to capital. In every country in 

 the world where measures have been taken to 



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