TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION I. 599 
Act, 1903. If necessary, all the purchase money is to be advanced by the State to 
the farmer, to be repaid—interest and sinking fund—by annual instalments. The 
Bill contains provisions against mortgaging, subdivision, and sub-letting, and thus 
the occupier is safeguarded from these admitted evils, to which all owners are 
often subject. 
It is not contemplated that all the land should pass into the hands of culti- 
vatiug owners—every kind of tenure would no doubt remain—but that ‘ occupying 
ownerships ’ ought to be the governing principle of our land system instead of being 
a mere incident in it. 
To facilitate the carrying-out of the suggested scheme of small occupying 
ownerships, the author strongly advocates: (1) a better system of rural education, 
and (2) the establishment of co-operation among the cultivators both for the pur- 
poses of buying ard of selling. But it is pointed out that co-operation is the 
natural outcome of small ownerships, but is not readily adopted by yearly tenants, 
who are often here to-day and gone to-morrow. In conclusion it is claimed that 
the suggested scheme as a whole would go far to solve the grave social problems 
of the day—the problems of the ‘unemployed,’ ‘housing,’ ‘ widespread destitu- 
tion,’ &c.—and that to pledge the national credit for the purpose of carrying it 
out would be in accordance with the principles of a sound national and political 
economy. 
2. The Importance of the Distinction between (1) Subsistence Farming and 
(2) Producing jor a Market, in connection with Small Holdings. Dy 
W. Cunninauam, D.D., LBA. 
The competition of American agriculture, since the Civil War came to an end 
and the West has been opened up, has been felt very generally throughout 
Europe, and has threatened the rural system in many places by spoiling the 
markets. Agriculture as carried on up to 1860 has ceased to pay, and the local 
producer has great difficulty in getting a remunerative price. The difficulty has 
appeared in different forms in France, Germany, Austria, and Sweden, and has 
been met in various ways; but wherever agriculture is unremunerative it is likely 
to decline, with consequent depopulation of rural districts. 
The magic of property cannot be relied upon to render land remunerative, or 
we should not find such numbers of derelict farms in the New England states. 
The sense of property is a stimulus to a certain extent, both to the investment of 
capital and to assiduity in labour, but it is in no sense magical. ‘Tillage is not 
likely to be rendered more remunerative in England unless something new i3 
adopted—new crops, new modes of tillage or of marketing; and the small holder 
has neither the capital nor the enterprise to embark in such undertakings; his 
forte lies in doing with assiduity that which his father did before him, or that 
which he sees his neighbour do. There is little reason to believe that great 
changes either in the crops or methods of English agriculture will be initiated by 
a cultivating peasantry, or that they will render it more remunerative. 
Instead of invoking magical aid, we may learn from contemporary experience 
that it is sometimes possible to evade American competition; there are markets 
for the produce of poultry farms and dairy farms, for flowers, fruit, and vege- 
tables, where local producers may hold their own. It is to be noticed, however, 
that the small holder, who lives by raising and selling such produce and has no 
other means of support, may be very severely hit, if not wholly ruined, by a single 
bad season; and that in any case he is at a disadvantage in regard to marketing 
as compared with the man who deals in large quantities. 
If we look to the experience of the past we may find a suggestion as to 
another method of utilising the land that evades alike the influence of American 
competition and the economic difficulties which beset the small holder who farms 
fora market. ‘The yeoman and the artificer in the Middle Ages farmed for their 
subsistence or to supplement their subsistence. If allotments and small holdings 
can be combined with opportunities of wage-earning, so that the land is used to 
eke out subsistence, the labouring population will be placed in a position of far 
