EDITORIAL.

Thames Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 10352, 28 April 1911, Page 4

EDITORIAL.

SMALL HOLDINGS IN BRITAIN.

The dissatisfaction felt in the Mother Country with the administration of tho Small Holdings Aat, mentioned in the cablegrams recently, has been duo in oart to tlio failure of the Board of Agriculture to deal effectively with ttf-.ses of intimidation. Tho Act -dame ii.to operation at the beginning of ]f>oß, and within six months an area of aiblont 300,000 acres had been applied for 'by myu and women who wanted 1 to secure .small sections of productive land. An official report stated that "a huge proportion of the applicants appear to bo thoroughly suitable; persons, and thef amount of capita! they possess is greatly in excess of what was generally anticipated." Many of the small holders soon found, however, that they had incurred the displeasure' f>{ the landed aristocracy by attempting to inducts the County Councils or the Board to purchase cviinpulsJorily suitable n.roasi of land. In Lancashire and Wiltshire men who had made application under the new Act wore evicted Ivy their landlords, and the publication of the details by some of the London newspapers brought stories, of similar happenings from other countries. One man in Cheshire, for example, applied for a holding, and] was "promptly served with noticei to quit hiss cottage and littlo garden. He managed to get the car of tho Board of Agriculture through a Lib&ral member of Parliament, and was provided with a section, but it eamiot be doubted that thousands of smnil men were deferred from asking for assistance under the Act, by the fear that they woudd lose their homes. "If tho Government really desires the. Small Holdings Acit to> to a success," wnte's t.lin chairman of thel Independent; Labour Pa.rty in the Daily Newsi, '"'drastic changes in administration must lie madia by the Board of -Agriculture. Tho fern' of victimisa.tion and (eviction must; be removed' entirely from the minds of the labourers." It soems, indeed, a pity that a law which promised to h& of enormous assistance to the British workers should be spoiled in the handling by the controlling authorities.