first year of this lease, the rental payable
for forty years is to be 5 per cent per annum upon the capital
invested in the settlement of the man and his family upon the holding,
which rent is to include the cost of the house, land, and
improvements, and all moneys advanced to him during his period of
probation.

It is estimated that this capital sum will average L520 per holding,
so that the tenant's annual rent for forty years will be L26, after
which he will have nothing more to pay save a nominal rent, and the
remainder of the lease will be the property of himself, or rather, of
his descendants. This property, I presume, will be saleable.

So, putting aside all legal technicalities and complications, it comes
to this: the tenant is started for two years after which he pays about
L4 a year rent per acre for the next forty years, and thereby
virtually purchases his holding. The whole question, which time alone
can answer, is whether a man can earn L4 per acre rent per annum, and,
in addition, provide a living for himself and family out of a
five-acre holding on medium land near Colchester.

The problem is one upon which I cannot venture to express any decisive
opinion, even after many years of experience of such matters. I trust,
however, that the answer may prove to be in the affirmative, and I am
quite sure that if any Organization is able to cause it to work out
this way, that Organization is the Salvation Army, whose brilliant
business capacity can, as I know, make a commercial success of the
most unpromising materials.

I should like to point out that this venture is one of great and
almost of national importance, because if it fails then it will be
practically proved that it is impossible to establish small holders on
the land by artificial means, at any rate, in England, and at the
present prices of agricultural produce. It is not often that a sum of
L40,000 will be available for such a purpose, and with it the
direction of a charitable Organization that seeks no profit, the
oversight of an Officer as skilled and experienced as Lieut.-Colonel
Hiffe, and, in addition, a trained Superintendent who will afford
advice as to all agricultural matters, a co-operative society ready to
hire out implements, horses and carts at cost price, and, if so
desired, to undertake the distribution or marketing of produce. Still,
notwithstanding all these advantages, I have my misgivings as to the
ultimate result.

The men c