A plea for peasant proprietors

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Preface

Such a work as this, if published a few years ago, might have been expected to attract but Kttle notice. The question of which it treats was then somewhat prematurely regarded as finally settled, and an attempt to revive it, if not resented as an impertinent inteusion on pubUc attention, would probably have been received with that scornful indifference with which antiquarian dissertations are commonly received by the busier portion of mankind. Small farmers and small proprietors had been summarily condemned, and having been condemned unheard, the sentence passed upon them was on that very account the less likely to be reversed, inasmuch as no opportunity had been afforded for the state-

VI PREFACE.

ment of anything in their fiivour. To have appealed against a dedsion which had obtained such general acquiescence^ would have been almost hopeless.

There is, however, in Truth an inherent force, which is sure to prevail in the end against every obstacle. Its light may long bum dimly, but it is never totally extinguished ; and, when least heeded, is slowly gaining strength to disperse the mists of error and prejudice in which it is enveloped. Even when public opinion was most decidedly in favour of large farms, and when their progress in this country wa^ haUed a^ matter for national exultation, there were still a few who doubted whether the change that was taking place was productive of unmixed good, and whether the good which had obviously resulted from it, might not have been secured by other means, without so much social disturbance. The doubts of these sceptics were confirmed by further experience and more extended observation, and only timidly hinted at first, began by degrees to be expressed more distinctly and with more and more confidence. At length the avowed dissenters from the established creed became

PREFACE. TU

numerous enough to constitute a sect. No person^ perhaps^ is better entitled to be styled its founder than that shrewd annotator on men and things^ Mr. Laing^ the well-known traveller. Mr. Blacker and Mr. Poulett Scrope also did good service in propagating its doctrines ; but its greatest accession of strength was received more recentiy, when it was joined by a powerful section of the ^^ fourth estate/' the conductors of the Morning Chronicle, and by one whose name must ensure respect for any cause which has the advantage of his support- Mr. John Stuart MiU — assuredly, whether as a dialectician, or as a political economist, without any living superior.

The example of such distinguished adherents has had its due effect, and the opinion maintained by them is visibly gaining ground. Its success, however, though sufficient to warrant sanguine hopes of its ultimate triumph, has hitherto been impeded by the prevailing ignorance with respect to the principles on which it rests. Each of the writers mentioned has done his part for the vindication of peasant proprietors; but the task has been under-

Vm PREFACE.

taken systematically by none except the last^ and even he, having been able to allot to it only a portion of a work embracing a variety of other topics, haa not treated this one at the length which its importance deserves. It has, therefore, been thought that a distinct treatise on the subject, in which the arguments on both sides should be fairly confronted, and in which no mere speculations, however ingenious, should be permitted to pass without being submitted to the test of experience, might now prove neither useless nor unacceptable to a large and increasing claas of readers. It might help to guide them to a decision on a question which, wherever human subsistence is derived from the soil, and in every community of which husbandmen form a considerable part, must be of immense importance ; but which possesses a ten-fold interest at this moment, and in this country, and which must be satisfactorily solved before any well-founded hope can be entertained of extrication £rom our present embarrassment.

With this view the following pages have been written. They are called a ^^Plea,'^ and the title

PREFACE. IX

confesses them to be the work of an advocate, — of one whose mind is made up, and who is anxious to bring others to his own way of thinking. Advocacy, however, when the result of honest conviction, is perfectly compatible with impartiality. The author has, of course, done his best to answer every argument opposed to his own views, but contending for truth alone, he has not been satisfied with the semblance of victory, nor condescended to disguise his weakness by misrepresenting what he could not refute. On the contrary, he has been careful to state both sides of the question with equal fairness, so that the reader whom he failed to convince might at least be furnished with ample materials for forming his own unbiassed judgment.

He thinks it due to himself to add, that the scheme proposed in the last chapter for the reclamation of the Irish waste lands is his own. Suggestions of a somewhat similar character have been made by Mr, Blacker and Mr. Scrope, but the outlines of the present author's plan were traced in a work published by him more than two years ago, when, so far as he is aware, Mr. Scrope had not

X PREFACE.

alluded to the subject either in or out of parliament^ and before Mr. Blacker^s Essays^ although published much earlier, had been seen or heard of by him.

He mentions this with no desire of claiming originality which belongs more justly to another, but solely with the view of protecting himself against a charge of plagiarism of which he is wholly guiltless.

Chapter I. Comparative P&oduci^teness Of Large And Sbiall Farms

PAOS

Prejudices entertamed in this country against Small Farms — Examination of the Objections to them — Their Productiveness — Liberal use of Manure by Small Farmers — Their arrangements for Drainage and Irrigation — Abundance of their Live Stock — Their ability to procure proper Implements — to effect a proper Division of Labour and Rotation of Crops — Their extraordinary Industry — Their bigoted attachment to old Customs — Produce sent to Market by Large and Small Farms — Great amount of Non- Agricultural Population in some Counties of Small Farms — Comparison between Great Britain and the Channel Islands — General Result of the Comparison between Large and Small Farms. 1

CHAPTER n.

SOCIAL EFFECTS OF PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP.

Special Advantages of Small Proprietors — Their peculiar Resources and Incentives to Diligence — Alleged tendency of Small Properties to Excessive Subdivision, and to promote Pauperism — Examination of Arguments in favour of that opinion — Evidences against it from the History of the Jews — of Ancient Rome — and Greece — and of England — from the Past and Present Condition of Norway — Switzerland — the Tyrol — and the Channel Islands .... 41

XU CONTENTS.

CHAPTER ni.

EFFECTS OF PEASANT PROPAIETOBSHIP IN FRANCE.

PAGB

Inconsistency of Evidence on this Subject — Arthur Young's Account of Small Proprietors in France — Causes of their former Depression — Their condition since the Revolution — Present number of Proprietors — ^Improbability of its having increased during the last Thirty Years — Average size of Estates — Erroneous Conclusions of MM. Mounier and Rubichon, and of the Quarterly Review — Present State of the Peasantry — 111 effects of the French Law of Inheritance — State of Agriculture — Depressed condition of the People in certain Districts — Remarks on some Statements in Mr. Macculloch*s Recent Treatise on Succession to Property. 115

CHAPTER IV.

HOBAL EFFECTS OF PEASANT PBOPRIETOBSHIP.

Honesty, Sobriety, and Loyalty of Small Proprietors — Their Educational Advantages — Excessive Parsimony,and Bigotry •^Means of Correcting the Defects of their Character . 167

CHAPTER V.

IBELAND ; PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTUBE.

Wretchedness of Irish Peasantry — Its Causes — Sketch of their History — Changes required in the Tenure of Land — Necessity of continuing the Small Farm System in Ireland — Examination of various Proposals for Improving the Condition of the Labouring Class — Impossibility of providing it with adequate Employment except on Small Farms— Plan for the Formation of a Proprietary Peasantry on the waste Lands — Conclusion 186

Appendix

Letter from Mr. Le Beir on the Produce of Wheat in Guernsey 255

A PLEA

FOB

PEASANT PROPRIETORS.

CHAPTER I.

COMPARATIVE PRODUCTIVENESS OF LARGE AND

SMALL FARMS.

EvBE since political economy was raised by Adam Smith to the dignity of a science, its British professors have been almost unanimously of opinion that small farms are incompatible with the pros- ;, ^ perity either of agriculture or of agricultural labourers. Land, they assert, cannot be properly cultivated unless it be held in large quantities by men of capital, nor can its cultivators be in a satisfactory condition unless they be hired servants, and chiefly dependent for subsistence on the wages they receive. The eminent men by whom this notion has been promulgated have supported it by many ingenious and plausible arguments; nor has their advocacy

B been confined to theoretical reasoning. They have ventured to appeal to experience and observation, and have been able to point to several facts, which at first sight, and until carefully examined, seem to justify their views. So long, indeed, as their attention was confined to their own country, the conclusion at which they arrived was just such as might have been expected. Sixty or seventy years ago, when their doctrine was coming into fashion, farms of 1000 or 1500 acres, though much less niunerous than at present, were already not unknown in England ; and though a more usual size was a hundred acres or thereabouts, farms of less than that extent were gradually becoming less common, and the cottage tenements of one acre and upwards had almost entirely disappeared. Simultaneously with this change in the arrangement of land, agriculture had made undeniable progress, and its improvement was most remarkable on the larger farms. With respect to farm labourers who had lost the land anciently attached to their habitations, they were not so well fed, or so expensively clad, as some centuries earlier, when sumptuary laws had been thought necessary to restrain their excesses in diet and dress; but the memory of those golden days was retained by few except professed antiquarians, and the result of a comparison with more recent times might have appeared favourable to the actual state of things.

Chap. I.] Of Small Farms. 3

During the reign of George II. and the first thirty years of George III.^ the English peasant was in a better position in many respects than in the preceding century. His wages were higher, though provisions and most other articles of consumption were cheaper. His supply of necessaries, if not plentifiil, was at least not scanty, and the progress of the arts had placed many conveniences and luxuries trithin his reach, which were utterly unknown to his wealthier ancestors. With glass in his windows, a glass tumbler or two, and some plates and dishes on his shelves, and some potatoes, and possibly a little tea and sugar in his closet, it would have seemed ridiculous to question his advantage over his rude forefathers, whose horn casements excluded the light and admitted the wind, who ate and drank out of wooden bowls and bickers, and ate and drank little but what their own ground furnished. His superiority over the serfs of Germany and Russia, who, like his own ancestors, were paid for labour, not in money, but in land, was, of course, taken for granted. To have questioned it would have been a reflection on British fireedom. It was therefore assumed, that the actual social position of the English agricultural labourer was the highest which he had ever attained; and it was further assumed, that the occupation of land by the lower class of peasants was a mark or relic of serfdom and

B ^ barbarism^ and that their deprivation of land and conversion into labourers for money-wages, was an indispensable step in their progress to freedom and civilisation. Adam Smith himself, who appears to have subsequently taken a juster view of the subject, speaks in one of the early chapters of his great work, of " the diminution of the number of cottagers and other small occupiers of land,'^ as " an event which has, in every part of Europe, been the immediate forerunner of improvement and better cultivation/^

These inferences from observation of large farms in England, were shortly afterwards confirmed by the results of the formation of small farms in Ireland. The partition of the immense pastures by which so large a portion of that island had been overspread, was followed by the creation of a body of small farmers, poor, ignorant, and imenterprising at first, and poorer and more spiritless in every succeeding generation, and by the excessive multiplication of a cottar peasantry, whose debasement and misery are at once the wonder and the scandal of the age. Some explanation will hereafter be offered of the peculiar circumstances which caused the partition of farms to be followed in this instance by such deplorable consequences. It is sufi&cient in this place to admit the fact, and to acknowledge that it affords some justification for the opinion which has been founded upon it. With small farms, sloth and misery on one

CHAF. I.] OF SMALL FARMS. 5

side of St. George^s Channel, and on the other large farms, tolerably cultivated and moderately produetive, together with a peasantry in a condition which, by comparison, might almost be styled comfortable, even careful inquirers might be excusdl for concluding, that the several phenomena in juxta-position bore to each other the relation of cause and eflfect. Whether this conclusion was correct as well as pardonable, or whether such hasty generalisation was quite consistent with the rules of induction, are questions which may be better answered when we come to extend our field of observation, and having collected additional facts, shall have ascertained how far they can be reconciled with the theory at present in vogue.

But how narrow soever may be the basis on which that theory rests, the superstructure itself must be confessed to be very cleverly put together, and to present a very imposing aspect. Nothing indeed could be more satisfactory than the way in which the superiority of large to small farms hss been accounted for, provided only that the superiority were real, and that the advantages claimed for the former, and the evils imputed to the latter, actually existed. The arguments used have not only been very generally received among persons who have had no means of testing them : they have prejudiced the minds of many against the admission of opposite evidence, and have stood their ground in situations where everything around bore testimony against them. Their fallacy can scarcely therefore be exposed without a patient and minute investigation ; and it is hoped that the spacp here allotted to that purpose will not be thought excessive^ when the difficulty as well as the importance of the subject is considered.

It is asserted in the first place that small farms must needs be badly cultivated. " The produce of a farm of five, ten, or twenty acres, may perhaps enable its occupier to preserve his family from downright starvation ; but it will never,^^ we are told, " enable him to accumulate stock to any extent.^^ He must consequently be too poor to bear the expense of properly manuring, draining, or irrigating his fields; he cannot afford to ^'use any but the simplest machines,^' nor to avail himself, except very insufficiently, " of the powers of the lower animals,^^ nor of those improvements which in rich and enlightened countries are continually being made in his art. Neither can he properly vary his crops, but for want of space for judicious alternation must injure his land by making it bear similar sorts of produce too frequently. Moreover, not only is he mainly dependent on manual labour, with little aid from mechanism or from the inferior animals, he cannot even make the best use of that labour. The same man must by turns apply to every sort of work, and consequently

CHAP. I,] "OF SMALL FARMS. 7

will do every job worse than it would be done on a large farm^ where separate persons^ it is said, would be ^^ ploughmen, thrashers, hedgers, shepherds, cowherds, oxherds, limeburners, drainers, &c.^^ Finally, the small farmer is seduced into idle habits by temptations too strong for his virtue, or forced into them by influences beyond his control. Not being subject to the same compulsion as the hired labourer/ he "naturally ^^ allows himself more frequent intervals of relaxation. " A cottager, however small his possession, has some species of produce to dispose of. This,'^ it seems, "leads to a habit of going to market, where much precious time is lost in the adjustment of trifling bargains.^^ " Nothing,'^ as Mr. Young has very justly, but somewhat needlessly, remarked, " can be more absurd than a strong hearty man walking some miles^ and losing a day^s work in order to sell a dozen of eggs, or a chicken, the value of which would not be equal to the labour of conveying it if he were properly employed.^^ Then it is assumed that farms cannot be small without being too small to afibrd constant employment to their occupiers. But the latter^ when they have nothing to do at home, cannot find work elsewhere, at least, if all the neighbouring farms be of much the same size. In consequence, they contract habits of indolence which are too frequently converted ere long into habits of dissipation. Of course an idle drunkard, who

8 PRODUCTIVENESS [chaf. i.

keeps neither a horse nor a cow, whose only tools are the spade and hoe^ who seldom manures^ and never drains^ but nevertheless overcrops his land^ is a wretched farmer, and it would be perfectly marvellous if his farm were not the counterpart of himself. *

Here is a tolerably long list of charges, yet they form but one clause in the bill of indictment. Let us examine them separately, beginning with the culprit^s alleged inevitable indigence.

From a comparison of the number of persons engaged in agriculture, with the supposed extent of cultivated land, it appears that one such person is employed on every twenty-four acres of such land in England and Wales. Twenty-four acres (even though, according to the proportion usual in England, only two-fifths of that quantity be under tillage, and the remainder pasture) are probably more than can be cultivated in the most efficient manner by a single person, whether he be a hired servant, or a small farmer t; but of the two, the latter, provided he be a leaseholder on reasonable terms, andnot arackrented tenant at will, is pretty certain to obtain the largest

• Encyclopaedia Britanuica, Art. Cottage System.

f An explanation of the mode in which one man, unassisted except by his wife and children, and using the spade instead of the plough, can keep as many as six acres under the most perfect and gardenlike tillage, is given in the treatise on Flemish Husbandry (p. 75), published in the Library of Useful Knowledge.

CHAP. I.] OF SMALL FARMS. 9

amount of produce. He may perhaps set about his work less systematically ; he may not command the same means of economising labour^ but^ nevertheless^ firom some cause or other^ his labour is pretty sure to be more abundantly rewarded; his land generally bears by far the heaviest crops. In the year 1837, the average jield of wheat in the large farms of England was only twenty- one bushels^ and the highest average for any one county was no more than twentysix bushels.* The highest average since claimed for the whole of England is thirty bushels/ and^ according to a statement resting on the same authority, the

* See Table in Macculloch*s Statistics of British Empire, vol. i. p. 482. In Mr. Macculloch's latest work on Succession to Property, p. 117, the average produce of wheat in England and. Wales is said to be ^ certainly not under thirty bushels " per acre ; but no authority is given for this statement, whereas that for 1837 was founded upon separate returns for every county. It is evidently impossible that such extraordinary progress can really have been made in so short a time, and there can be little doubt that the average of a few greatly improved districts is represented as that of the whole kingdom. Great improvement has certainly been made of late years, bu not so much as to invalidate the comparisons drawn in the text ; for agriculture, while advancing in England, has not been stationary in other countries. In Guernsey, in 1835, four quarters per acre were considered a good crop of wheat ; but at the last meeting of the Guernsey Agricultural Society, the largest yield of white wheat was reported to have been not less than nine imperial quarters per acre, and that of red wheat seven quarters and a half. These crops would be thought so prodigious in England that I at first suspected the account to be exaggerated. Its accuracy is, however, attested by a gentleman who is not Ukely to be mistaken, Mr. Le Beir, the able secretary of the Guernsey Agricultural Society. His letter on the subject will be found in the Appendix.

B 3

10 PRODUCTIVENESS [chaf. i.

produce of the seed is ^' seldom less tlian twelve-fold^ but if drilled^ fourteen-fold, and if dibbled, sixteen, or even twenty-fold/'* In Jersey, where the average size of farms is only sixteen acres, the average produce of wheat per acre was stated by Inglis,t in 1834, to be thirty-six bushels ; but it is proved by official tables to have been forty bushels in the five years ending with 18334 In Ouemsey, where farms are still smaller, four quarters per acre, according to Inglis, " is considered a good, but still a very common crop/^ In Flanders, where the most numerous class of farms consists of those between five and ten acres, the average yield of wheat is at least thirty bushels. § Mr. MaccuUoch, indeed, without quoting his authority, sets it down at no more than twenty bushels and a-half per acre; but this, though only a trifle below the average ascribed by the same writer to the whole of England, and higher than that of one-half of the whole number of English counties, is evidently incorrectly stated, and must be considerably below the truth, as Mr. Macculloch likewise says, that the seed sown produces more than twenty-fold. || It should be

* Speech of Mr. E. Chadwick, at a meeting of the Farmers' Clnb in the early part of 1847.

f Ingtis*s Channel Islands, toI. i. p. 186.

X Guernsey and Jersey Magazine, vol. iii. p. 106.

§ Flemish Husbandry, pp. 8 and 76. From a remark at p. 92, the average in the Pays de Waes would seem to be betwe«Q four and five quarters.

II Geog. Diet., vol. i. pp. 331-2.

CHAP. I.] OF SMALL FARMS. 11

observed that the soil^ both of Flanders and of the Channel Islands^ is^ for the most part, of a light sandy character^ ill adapted for the growth of wheat. Of barley, a more suitable crop, the quantity in some parts of Belgium is sometimes as much as eighty bushels per acre, and the average is forty-five; while in England it is only thirty-three bushels.* Of potatoes, the average produce in England is certainly not more than 300 bushels, or 22,200 lbs. per acre, and is probably not nearly so much. In Belgium it is ten tons, or 22,400 lbs.,t and in Jersey 35,000 Ibs.f Clover, another most important article of farm produce, is nowhere found in ^^ such perfect luxuriance " as in Flanders, where it exhibits " a vigour and weight of produce truly surprising,^' more especially when it is considered ^^ that such prodigious crops are raised from six poimds of seed per acre.'' § These proofs may be thought sufficient to establish the superior productiveness of small farms; but if others be required, they may befoimdin England itself, among the smallest of small farmers, the allotment-holders of a quarter of an acre, who seldom fail to obtain a profit of at least five poimds sterling even from that morsel of ground. It appears then that the small

• Flemish Husbandry, pp. 8 and 32. Table in Stat, of Brit. Empire, vit tupra, f MaccuUoch's Geog. Diet, yol. i. p. 332. X Guernsey and Jersey Mag., vol. iii p. 106. % Maceulloch, ut iitpra, p. 331.

occupier^ in spite of his disabilities^ real or imaginary^ would be able to get a good deal more from bis land than it would yield if it formed a portion of a large farm. After payings therefore, rent at the same rate as the large farmer, and after taking for his own use the same sum as would be applied to the maintenance of the cultivator of an equal portion of a large farm, he would have remaining, not only as great, but a much greater relative surplus wherewith to continue his cultivation. Acre for acre he would be able to spend in improvements, not only as much, but a good deal more than his rival. The whole of his profits would not indeed enable him to do some few things which are occasionally done by managers of large properties. Assuredly he could not, "to improve the breed of his sheep, give a thousand guineas for the hire of a single ram, for a single season,'' nor "send across the kingdom to distant provinces for new implements, and for men to use them,'' nor "employ and pay men for residing in provinces where practices were foimd which he might wish to introduce." But with all deference to Arthur Yoimg, who says that such eflfbrts are common in England, they neither are nor need be made, except very rarely, and by very few even of large farmers, and all the ordinary expenses of cultivation the small farmer is equally able to bear. With as much ease as the tenant of two or three square miles he can afford, if need be.

CHAP. 1.] OF SMALL FARMS. 13

" to cover his whole farm with marl at the rate of 100 or 150 tons per aere/^ — "to drain all his land at the expense of two or three pounds per acre/^ — " to pay a heavy price for the manure of towns^ and convey it thirty miles by land carriage/^ or ^' to float his meadows at the expense of five pounds per acre/' What reason is there for doubting his ability to do this ? The original capital^ whether of a great or of a small farmer, must^ in fairness^ be assumed to bear an equal proportion to the extent of the farm ; its only certain source of increase is the profits of farming, and the small farmer's profits have been shown to be the greatest. In proportion to the size of his farm, therefore, he must have not merely as much, but a good deal more money to spend on cultivation.

In effect, his expenditure is often proportionably the greater of the two. The richest English farmers are less prodigal of manure than those of Belgium, who, by the continual intermixture of animal and vegetable refuse, have converted a sterile sand into a dark rich loam of unsurpassed fertility. In the Channel Islands, also, manure is employed with almost equal liberality, ten cart-loads of sea-weed worth fifty shillings, besides stable dung, being the allowance for an acre.''^ Drainage is an operation which, in many situations, cannot be effectually

• Duncan^s History of Guernsey, p. 294.

executed^ unless it be undertaken on an extensive scale ; but that the necessity of combining for the purpose does not prevent small occupiers from properly performing this important part of their business is shown by the example of the Netherlands, the country, above all others, in which drainage is most indispensable, and in which also it is best provided for. Combination equally enables small farmers to construct expensive works for irrigation. Perhaps the most ingenious contrivances of the kind which anywhere exist, are to be found, not among the scientific and wealthy agriculturists of Europe, but among the Bedouins of some Arabian oases, which owe their fertility to the labour and skill exerted by the inhabitants in order to obtain supplies of water. The greater part of the country being destitute of running streams on the surface, springs are sought in high places beneath it, and in order to reach them, the ground must often be opened to a depth of forty feet. '^ A channel from the fountain head is then, with a very slight descent, bored in the direction to which it is to be conveyed, with apertures at regular distances, to afford light and air, to those who are occasionally sent to keep it clean. In this manner water is frequently conducted from a distance of six or eight miles, and an unlimited supply is obtained. The channels are usually about four feet broad and two feet deep, and

CHAP, t.] OF SMALL FARMS. 15

contain a clear rapid stream/'* If the small farmer use only the "simplest machines/' it is probably because experience has taught him^ as we shall hereafter see^ that the simplest tools are by far the most efficient. If he keep no horses^ it is commonly because he seldom has occasion for them^ and that it is cheaper for him to hire them when necessary ; and with respect to his alleged inability to avail himself of the services of others of the "lower animals/' it is sufficient to remark that the live stock of a Belgian farmer of no more than six acres^ commonly consists of two cows^ a calf or two^ one or two pigs, a goat or two, and some poultry ."t Such a £armer in Belgium would use the spade only for trenching the ground; but among equally small occupiers in the Channel Islands, whether firom attachment to old customs, or &om some other cause, not only is the plough in general use, but a plough called " la grande querrue," so large and lumbering, that not less than eight or ten horses or oxen are often employed to draw it. Very few of the peasants are rich enough to possess one of these ponderous engines, or the number of cattle required for it ; but