§ Sir RANDOLF BAKERasked how many bonâ fide agricultural labourers had been supplied with small holdings under the Small Holdings Act of 1908; and what proportion they were in to the total number of small holders who had acquired holdings under the Act?
§ Sir E. STRACHEY4,470, or nearly 34 per cent. of the total number of applications received for small holdings in 1908 were from agricultural labourers, and in 1909 they numbered 893, or 25 per cent. We have no means of knowing how many of them have actually been provided with land except by asking the county councils to instruct the small holdings officers to prepare a special Return on the subject, and we are reluctant to take this step at the present, when, as the hon. Baronet knows, those officers are so fully occupied.