1908.] 



Report on Small Holdings. 



443 



The Board thought it desirable, therefore, to issue a circular 

 pointing out that the Act did not justify the adoption of such 

 a course, and they have requested the councils concerned to 

 reconsider such applications if they had been rejected on 

 inadequate grounds. 



Another circumstance which has caused the reduction of the 

 applications is that in some cases councils have been able to act 

 as intermediaries in arranging that applicants should obtain 

 land direct from private landowners. If the applicant agrees 

 to the adoption of this course the Board themselves offer no 

 objection, and from the information they have received it 

 is estimated that not less than 1,000 acres of land have been 

 thus let in small holdings since the passing of the Act. 



The inquiries which have been made have shown that a 

 certain number of applicants have applied for more land than 

 they can manage properly, and in many cases they probably 

 did not expect to obtain the whole amount of their demand. 

 Such applications have been reduced to the acreage which 

 the sub-committee think suitable. In addition some applicants 

 have failed to attend the local inquiries, and their applica- 

 tions have therefore been struck out, but where it has been 

 shown that they were unable to attend owing to the hour 

 at which the inquiry was held being inconvenient to them, or 

 from some other satisfactory reason, they have been usually 

 given another opportunity of being interviewed. A good 

 deal of evidence has reached the Board that many applicants 

 who have applied for particular pieces of land decline to take 

 any other land if that cannot be obtained, and in such cases 

 the Board have pointed out that the duty of the county council 

 does not go beyond the provision of suitable land within a 

 reasonable distance of the applicants' homes, and that 

 councils cannot necessarily be compelled to provide the par- 

 ticular land applied for. 



The majority of the county councils have now practically 

 completed their local enquiries and are therefore in a position 

 to know the approximate area of land required to satisfy the 

 genuine demand. Many of them have already taken active 

 steps to obtain land, and inquiries have been addressed to 

 the local landowners asking whether they are in a position to 

 let or sell suitable land to the council. 



