LEADING FEATURES OF THE WHEAT INDUSTRY 195 
felt by the majority of our politicians, act as a safe- 
guard against the recurrence of this system, which was 
gradually supplanted some twenty years ago by one 
infinitely better as results clearly prove. But the work 
of the early landowners is too often minimised by critics. 
By their pioneer work in agriculture they occupy an 
important position in the industrial history of the 
Dominion. Although it cannot be said that the position 
of the ordinary labourer was enviable at that time, it 
must be admitted that it was on these large estates that 
our present-day farmers first ‘‘found their feet.’’ It is 
true that the landowner in some cases strongly opposed 
the settlement of the small farmer, but, on the whole, the 
latter owes much to the former. It was the enterprise 
of the landowner which gradually extended settlement, 
meagre though it was at first. It remained for the more 
modern farmer to develop an intensive settlement, and 
in this he has succeeded eminently. 
TABLE XXVIII. 
The following table shows the relative positions of leasehold and 
freehold in the provinces under investigation at the last census, 1911. 
Total Tndividuels | Leased f 
PROVINCE |oceupied Land| Freehold | “Cy Public’ | the Crown 
Bodies 
Canterbury...) 6,587,587 2,581,682 926,471 3,060,112 
Otago 
(Southland 
excluded) ...| 7,997,952 1,493,718 509,867 5,963,372 
(d) Size of Holdings.—The following table shows the 
total area (in thousands of acres), and the number of 
holdings in groups as classified in the Census of 1911 :— 
