Page:Speeches and addresses by the late Thomas E Ellis M P.pdf/130

 circumstanced it may be in after life, will always have leanings towards the country and will pine to get back there." Reports from other districts in Wales confirm the estimate of the value of small holdings. But from almost every district there rises the complaint that these holdings have been consolidated into large farms. From Montgomeryshire, for instance, comes the statement that there seems now to be less chance of a career for the successful labourer than in former years. This is due to the steady disappearance of small holdings which were for him the first rung in the ladder of social government. Mr. Chapman, the Assistant Commissioner, who visited Radnorshire, says that " the amalgamation of small farms into larger ones took place very frequently from thirty to forty years ago, but the memory of it is very distinct, and there are a great many ruined cottages to be seen in the district, which used to be occupied by small holders, and which remind the people of the past." A Montgomeryshire bailiff pointed out how "Sir Watkin had during the last fifty years