BRITAIN'S BIG ESTATES

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLV, Issue 11929, 24 October 1919, Page 7

BRITAIN'S BIG ESTATES

BROKEN UP FOR SMALL ! FARMS. NO LACK OF PURCHASERS. Never since the dissolution of the monasteries of Henry VIII’s reign have so many large estates been broken up in Britain as during the past 12 months. There is no lack of purchasers, and prices are high. It is impossible at the present juncture, when labour is still scarce and transport still far from re-establish-ed, to tell what the effect upon the food production of the country will be. The Land Acquisition Bill, the Settlement of Soldiers, the Transport, and Housing Acts will all have an influence upon the question, but the Board of Agriculture has its hands full, if it does its duty thoroughly in protecting the use of the land from inefficient farming. The doctrinaire in rural matters is the one person whose opinion is valueless. In agriculture, scientific test and daily acquaintance with soil and seed, plant and stock can alone furnish evidence worth having. The urban mind, that cannot think beyond cheap, seaborne food, villadom, and town life generally, must not be permitted to becloud the fundamental reasons for encouraging agricultural life. The growth or immense towns has proved to be a ' social menace, and if the rapid breaking up of large estates into smaller holdings, coupled with progressive cottage building, can stem the migration to the towns, it iyvill prove of the highest beneficence. Unquestionably there is a greater appreciation of all that past agricultural neglect has inflicted upon the country than was etfer the case before, but it took the war to reveal the policy of drift, and to convince i the country that they were paying for what they could grow in large measure at home. It is, however, the attitude of -the world at large to the relations of employers and employed that will 1 bring about changes in agriculture. It is not so much the large profits of the individual farmers, many of whom have made fortunes daring the last tew years, that are being considered, but the wider question of how to maintain a big agricultural population in the country, working at fair wages and under proper conditions, maintaining a high standard of production at the same time. To allow land to lapse under the bad management of half-trained or inefficient men will be to court disaster. Training or proof of kuo wledge and experience must be a sine qua non to every soldier put upon the land, and it should be made impossible for any of the country to be wasted through bad conditions in any case. It may be that many farms will be worked upon co-operative methods. ; it is certain that 'co-operation as regards buying and selling is L already gain - ing ground rapidly. Clubs of various sorts are fruitful sources of co-operative work, and in the north tne value of united effort is better understood than it is in the south. It is likely that, with the passing of the big estates, something akin to the yeomen of past . generations will re-estabilsh themselves; men who worked themselves and whose womenfolk knew necessities of country life as intimately as “Mrs Boyser” in George Eliot’s fine drawing of farm life. Dullness and isolation have been the drawbacks in the past in the country, together with lack of widepsread knowledge. There never was such an opportunity for the work of the agricultural authorities as to-day. Their mission is to stimulate activity from headquarters, and then leave the rural localities the necessary freedom for development, for it is easy to overgovern agriculture. Up to the present, nearly 14,000 applicants have asked county councils for small holdings, and it is said that the percentage of applicants rejected as unsuitable is small. Once the hail is set rolling, the land settlement question promises to arrange itself, and no political dust thrown ever .so skilfully will blind a population to the prospect of country life.