100 



Building for Land Settlement. 



[May, 



is safe to say that the business of trading suspect animals will 

 become unpopular. 



Early in April Sir Lawrence Weaver, Director-General of the 

 Land Department of the Ministry of Agriculture, read to the 

 Buildin for R°y a l Institute of British Architects a 



▼ j « in i . paper in which he set out a brief record 

 Land Settlement : 1 „ * , . , , 



A Survey of the the Muustl 7 s work m Providing land 

 ■»*■• • j. i ttt i settlement for ex-soldiers. He pointed out 

 Ministry's Work. T . , l e , , 



that this work is the outcome ot a pledge 



given during the war to men in H.M. Service and to women 



who worked on the land for at least six months. This pledge 



received statutory force from the Land Settlement (Facilities) 



Act of 1919. 



The total applications from ex- Service men for land 

 amounted to 48,340 when the list was closed on December 1st. 

 last. It is' expected that about 30,000 of these applications 

 will stand and of these upwards of 11 ,000 have been satisfied. 

 If agricultural conditions continue satisfactory enough to main- 

 tain the pressure of applicants' demand for land it may be 

 found necessary to acquire as much as 160,000 acres more, so 

 that when the work comes to an end 640 square miles will 

 have been acquired and 30,000 men will have been settled. 



The term " Small Holding "is an elastic one and covers 

 anything between a plot of an acre or two suitable for a 

 market garden up to a fifty acre dairy holding with seven 

 roomed cottage, dairy and farm buildings. The capital cost 

 has ranged from £100 to £5,000, but is now limited to £2,500. 

 The average size of a holding in England and Wales is about 

 13J acres. Practical difficulties in the way of work done have 

 been immense. Demobilisation brought no reduction in the 

 cost of building; contrary to general expectation prices 

 increased. Although the Land Settlement (Facilities) Act 

 placed twenty million pounds to the credit of capital costs and 

 although the Government undertook to meet all annual losses, 

 the most rigid economy has been called for all the time. 

 Approximate scales of capital cost and annual loss per holding 

 were placed before the County Councils in the summer of last 

 year, and the Ministry's superintending architects review all 

 small holding building schemes and cut out every item of 

 unnecessary expenditure. 



The Land Settlement Division maintains the closest 



