6o2 Report of Small Holdings COxMmittee. [jan., 



Scotland. To any such proposals, the chief objections which 

 have been brought to the notice of the Committee are : — (i) That 

 the " misery of mortgage " is sometimes more than a set-off to 

 " the magic of property " ; (2) that the houses of small free- 

 holders are apt to fall into disrepair and into an insanitary con- 

 dition, while the Local Authority either will not or cannot 

 compel the owner to do that which would be insisted on in the 

 case of a more wealthy proprietor ; and (3) that the financial 

 position of the small freeholder in the future may become more 

 onerous than it would be were he to remain as a tenant. 



The short reservation appended to the Report by Sir Ralph 

 Anstruther refers to a suggestion that buildings erected on 

 small holdings by County Councils or by the Central Authority 

 should be exempt from the district bye-laws. Sir Ralph 

 Anstruther does not concur in this conclusion. 



Mr. Munro Ferguson, while approving of the main lines of 

 the Report and agreeing with its chief recommendation — land 

 purchase — emphasizes in his reservation the necessity for more 

 definite action on some of the lines laid down by the Committee,, 

 and suggests some financial modifications. He considers that 

 the recommendation of the Committee as to public loans to 

 private owners involves the fatal admission that small holdings, 

 cannot pay. 



Mr. James Long observes in his reservation that there are 

 large numbers of persons, and among them agricultural 

 labourers and other rural classes of humble position, who are 

 unable to obtain possession of land on which they can dwell 

 and which they can cultivate for the purpose of obtaining a 

 whole or partial livelihood. Farm labourers would hail with 

 satisfaction legislation which, as in Ireland, under the Irish 

 Labourers Acts, would provide them with substantial and roomy 

 cottages and an acre of land at rents within their narrow means, 

 or at such a cost as would enable them to pay the instalments, 

 and interest with regularity, Mr. Long also refers to the 

 arbitrary character of the building bye-laws of many Local 

 Authorities. 



Sir Francis Channing in his supplementary Repoit refers, in 

 the first place, to the economic basis of small holdings, and 

 observes that rural regeneration by State action to promote 



