SMALL HOLDINGS.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 3106, 11 June 1892, Page 2 (Supplement)

SMALL HOLDINGS.

Wisitinc! upon tho subject of small holdings in England, a Tuscany correspondent of a London journal asks, Why did the class of small cultivators and yeomen disappear ? Was it. not because i'rom want of capital they could not content against the difficulties of the situation ? How are these to be created bv tho new legislation to bo better off ? You say, by adopting , the methods employed by horticulturists, rather than by farmers. But the methods of horticulturists are expensive, and where is the class intended to be benefited by the proposed laws to obtain the necessary money ? If they borrow it, do not they run risk, all but inevitable, of being crushed, more or less speedily, by a load of debt ? Now, our Tuscan labourers—a very shrewd fraternity — appreciate this problem, and they got round it in this way. They go halves with the capitalists big or little. They say:'" You buy the land ; stock, and plant, and drain it; you pay the taxes and other outgoings, and we will give you out labor, skill, and experience ; and then we will equally share the produce in kind !" Thousauds of holdings are ba-iod on this principle The system succeeds, and has succeeded for generations because it is foundedona just and equitable oe-operation between capital and labour. The capitalist in very often a very humble one indeed —a small tradesman or artizan in town or village. Fie like to invest his savings in a tiny farm He likes to spend his money in stocking and planting it, and then draw his wiuc, his oil, and fruit, and fresh vegetables iu return. He knows that the labourer, who is working , on his own account, as w<4l as for him, tho proprietor, will put his talents iuto the enterprise, without, too much looking after. Tho labourer, being by nature and the necessities of the ease a frugal, thrifty fellow, iu bis turn gets on. He is free from debt and other burdens, and he puts his money, as a rule, into the savings bank. His wife aud daughters go to mass on Sundays, clad in bravery ; ho can give the latter dowers, He is a contented, respectable citizen. One may smile at his primitive plough, at his slow white oxen, at the shallow fur lows scratched between olives, vines and fruit trees. But he is ploughing land which is dug by the great three cornered, longhandled Italian spade, the "vanga," with its point of gold, according to tho proverb, every three years. Full of wise economies, clever adaptnoss of means to ends, frugality and sobriety, he is tho creature of a just, durable, and highly organised system, well worth the study of those who would improve tho condition of the English labourer.