SIVTALL-HOLDINGS AND THE SMALL-HOLDER. 



9m 



SMALL-HOLDINGS AND THE SMALL-HOLDEE. 

 By Thomas Smith, F.E.H.S., Supervise! of the Eels Small-Holdings. 

 [Read September 12, 1911.] 



In the following paper I have endeavoured to explain what I consider 

 to be the conditions under which a small-holder should work and the 

 qualifications he should possess in order that he may have a reasonable 

 prospect of success in his undertaking ; but in order to make my point 

 of view clear, I must first inquire into the causes of rural depopulation, 

 and the circumstances which make a re-colonization of the country 

 districts by means of small-holdings desirable in the interests of the 

 State. 



Everyone knows that the land is the ultimate source of wealth, and 

 that the stamina and reproductive powers of a nation rest to a large 

 extent in the workers on the land. It is a matter of history that any 

 nation which allows its agricultural industries to become neglected has, 

 sooner or later, to pay a heavy reckoning; in fact, the decay of a 

 nation's agriculture has always been a prelude to its downfall. 



Early in the eighteenth century England was very largely a country 

 of small-holdings, but towards the middle of the century an agricul- 

 tural revolution commenced, in which the small farm was absorbed 

 into the large farm, commons were enclosed, and the yeoman and 

 small-holder were reduced to dependence upon wage earning. The 

 axiom was evolved that the large farmer was the only sound agricul- 

 tural unit. Undoubtedly many notable technical advances were 

 achieved, but the revolution involved a social tragedy, and to it may 

 be traced many of the evils of the present-day agricultural conditions 

 in England. 



The large farm was an arable farm, and the cause which promoted 

 the formation of the large farm was the high price of corn. The first 

 half of the eighteenth century was a period of good harvests and cheap 

 corn; the second half one of bad harvests and dear corn. The war 

 with France drove the prices up to famine height, and the Corn Laws 

 and bad harvests combined to keep them there after the peace, the 

 average price of wheat for ten years ending 1819 being 92s. per 

 quarter. It thus became profitable to put any land under the plough 

 for corn-growing, and the greatest profit was made when the opera- 

 tions were conducted on a large scale, under capitalist exploitation. 

 Under these circumstances there was a strong economic force making 

 for the consolidation of small into large holdings. This was powerfully 

 assisted by another economic force: the things to which the small- 

 holder principally devoted his attention were those which the large 

 farmer as a rule considered beneath his notice, such as dairy produce, 

 market gardening, pigs and poultry, and as the price of corn mounted 



