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CHAPTER III

SYNOPSIS OF PURCHASE OF LAND (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL, 1905

PART II

PEASANT PROPRIETARY

Part II. of the Bill enables the Board of Agriculture to purchase any land which they may deem suitable for the purpose of providing holdings for persons who desire to buy and who will themselves cultivate the holdings.

Every such holding shall be not less than three acres and not more than one hundred acres in extent.

The Board may adapt any land they may acquire for the purpose of these small holdings by dividing it and doing what is necessary to make each holding complete in itself, the cost of such adaptation to be equitably apportioned among the several holdings.

The Board may erect on each holding a dwellinghouse and such other buildings as may be desirable for the due occupation of the holding, or if thought preferable they may advance sums to the purchaser to enable him to do the work himself, such sums to be included in the purchase price of the holding.

The Board may advance any money not exceeding nine-tenths, or, if they think fit in suitable cases, up to the whole of the cost, to a purchaser of a small holding

for the purposes named in the foregoing sections, and the method of repayment and the provisions as to subletting and subdividing are the same as in Part I of the Bill.

The Advisory Committees appointed by County Councils and Councils of Non-County Boroughs under the "Small Holdings Act, 1892," are to be Advisory Committees to the Board, to give information and assistance in respect of putting this part of the Bill into operation.

The sum to be advanced for the purposes of this part of the Bill is limited to two millions sterling.1

1 In every rural district there are to be found men very suitable as regards character and ability to be peasant proprietors but who have not the sum required to be paid down at the time of purchase. To meet such cases the Board of Agriculture, on the recommendation of the local Advisory Committee, is enabled to advance the whole of the purchase money. As far as young men are concerned, a real prospect of getting land of their own would be enough to induce the best of them to save money in order to become purchasers.

CHAPTER IV

PEASANT PROPRIETARY (continued)

THE imports of the smaller articles of food into this country are enormous, and are increasing every year. Through changes in classification made in the official returns at different times it is difficult to show in tabulated form the actual increase of every article during a given number of years. But selecting those articles which are returned under the same headings in 1895 and 1904, the following table shows the rapid rate at which the imports have increased during the ten years:

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315,594 40,865,909

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780,737

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465,143

61,951,622 21,086,313

Besides the above there are other articles which, for the reason given, cannot be tabulated for the purpo

of comparison. In the year 1904 the imports of these articles were as follows:

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£5,205,062

From the above figures it will be found that of raw fruits of the kinds we could produce, and are producing at home, we imported in 1904 to the value of over four millions sterling. No doubt a considerable quantity was sent from warmer climates before our own produce was marketable, but the quantity so sent was but a small proportion of the whole. Besides the articles noted, there are tomatoes which could be grown in England in the same manner as they are grown in the Channel Islands.1 There is also as

1 Of this amount (£372,575) Germany sent us to the value of £52,692, Holland £18,699, France £24,757.

2 The great bulk of this came from Norway, Holland, France, and Belgium.

3 of this amount (£457,491) France sent us to the value of £277,356, Holland £97,389, Germany £19,481, Belgium £5664.

• Some time ago I was visiting a peasant proprietor in Guernsey who owns about fifteen acres of land, which he cultivates largely with tomatoes in glass-houses built in a plain and cheap way under his own direction. He knew the south of England fairly well, and said that he could do better there, as land was so much cheaper than in the Island. I reminded him that there was plenty of land to be rented. His reply— which he considered conclusive-was, "Seeing the competition we have to meet, hired land would be no good to me.”

paragus-a plant indigenous to England-for which there is an enormous demand, and the successful cultivation of which, in a form to meet the requirements of the market, requires that minute attention which a small owner alone can give. Besides the articles named there are vast quantities of dried and preserved fruits and vegetables and of fruit jellies of various kinds imported every year-mainly from Holland, Belgium, France, and Germany-which, with a revival of rural prosperity, would in all probability, at least to a large extent, be produced at home. Flowers and honey may be termed specialities of the peasant proprietor. Of the former we imported in 1904 to the value of nearly a quarter of a million sterling, and of the latter about £30,000.1

Here at our very doors we have a vast and everincreasing market for articles of food which this country is by nature fitted to produce, and with regard to some of them more fitted than any other country. But it is a market we cannot supply under our present system, and so the door is closed to sound and profitable employment for an enormous number of our people. At the same time millions of acres of land have gone out of cultivation, and the process is steadily continuing, while the rural population are migrating to already overcrowded centres of industry, in the hope of bettering their condition.

It is as if a manufacturer with the offer of abundance of orders, with materials lying on the ground, and workmen standing idle, were, through defects in his

1

A year or two ago there was a growing trade in the export of English grapes to France, but recently the French Government put a prohibitive duty on that article which straightway put an end to the trade.

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