CHAPTER V. LANDHOLDING AND AGRICULTURAL CONDITIONS OF SOCIAL WELL-BEING IN EUROPE AND AMERICA. WE shall now turn our attention to France, in which country social and political action has been of an extremely radical character. In a previous chapter, the bearing of the great Revolution upon the tenure of the land has been indicated. The result of that great movement was, as regards the proprietorship of the land, that the nobles were displaced, the common people, who lived on the soil, falling heir to it at a cheap rate, the assignats, which were issued by the French Assembly, being bought for the most part by the resident agricultural population when they were heavily depreciated. Additionally, however, the enormous burdens which had lain upon the shoulders of the masses of the people were suddenly removed. Not only was the land obtained by those who were ready to cultivate it, but it was obtained free from those ruinous restrictions which had hitherto rendered it infertile, and impeded and burdened the cultivator. Arthur Young, in his Travels in France,'1 writes that 'the effect of the Revolution to the small proprietors of the kingdom must, according to the common nature of events, be, in the end, remarkably happy.' And, after showing the wealth which must have fallen to them, he says: Their agriculture must be invigorated by such 1 Travels in France in 1787-8-9, vol. i. pp. 609–610. CH. V. LANDED PROPRIETORS IN FRANCE. 129 wealth; by the freedom enjoyed by its possessors; by the destruction of its innumerable shackles; and even by the distresses of other employments, occasioning new and great investments of capital in land: and these leading facts will appear in a clearer light when the prodigious division of landed property in France is well considered; probably half, perhaps two-thirds, of the kingdom are in the possession of little proprietors, who paid quit-rents and feudal duties for the spots they farmed. Such men are placed, at once, in comparative affluence; and as ease is thus acquired by, at least, half the kingdom, it must not be set down as a point of trifling importance. Should France escape a civil war, she will, in the prosperity of these men, find a resource which politicians at a distance do not calculate.' These words proved to be remarkably true. The people, set free from their former shackles, displayed in the future wars a power and endurance which astonished Europe, and, as we shall see, they are now steadily advancing, so far, at least, as they are owners of the soil, in comfort and prosperity. At the present day, or rather, in 1862, the last period of which we have information, there were 3,799,759 agricultural proprietors, of whom there were only 57,639 who did not cultivate the land with their own hands. One-half of the whole number farmed their own lands, nearly a million were farmers of their own and of other lands, and métayers, and more than a million were day labourers. In 1851, the total number of landed proprietors amounted to 7,846,000; that is, more than a fifth of the number of inhabitants in the country. Of this number, however, there were, as certified by the municipal authorities, 3,000,000 who did not pay any personal tax on account of their poverty. The property of these consisted, generally, of an extremely K small spot of land, or a cottage.1 More than one-half of the country is the property of individuals who possess an average of about six acres each, and almost the whole extent consists of properties under 60 acres each. The condition of France, then, in this respect, is a complete contrast to the condition of the United Kingdom, for even the poorest persons are proprietors of land. In addition to this important consideration, we have to remember, when we regard the rate of improvement that may characterise the agriculture and the agriculturalists of France, that the rate of progress of manufactures and commerce, owing to the paucity of mineral wealth, neither has nor could have been anything approaching to that of Britain; and, as a result of this, we find that the agricultural population of France is about one-half of the whole, while in England it is reckoned to be only one-seventh or one-eighth. And the agricultural population is not relieved, as it is in Ireland and Scotland, by an enormous rate of emigration, for the whole emigrants from France number no more than 6,000 or 7,000 per annum. Whatever reduction there is in the numbers of the agricultural population, is due to the superior attraction of the towns; and the country as a whole provides, from decade to decade, for the wants of its population. There appears, too, to be little absolute destitution to compel the inhabitants to leave their native country, for a large portion of the comparatively insignificant number of emigrants find their way across the Mediterranean to the French colony of Algeria, where they can scarcely consider themselves to be permanently expatriated. Now, we find the population of France to increase in a different manner from that of the United Kingdom. 1 Statistique de la France comparée avec les divers pays de l'Europe, par Maurice Block, 1875, vol. ii. pp. 23-28. CH. V. AGRICULTURAL PROGRESS IN FRANCE. 131 Amongst the rural population, which is fully two-thirds of the whole, the natural rate of increase is only 1-405th, the births being to the deaths as 10 to 9, and the deaths to the population, per annum, as I to 45.1 The produce of the crops of the country, and the quality of the live-stock, have, since the early part of the century, improved greatly; but the improvement has been most noteworthy during the last 25 or 30 years. Thus, if we take wheat, one of the most important crops of France, occupying full one-fourth of the whole arable land, and full one-eighth of the total area of the country, we find the crop to have progressed as follows:In the period of ten years, 1820-29, the average production of this crop over France was at the rate of 13 bushels per acre; in the years immediately preceding 1840, it was 13 bushels, the price being, at each period, about 16s. 6d. per bushel. The quantities and prices continued the same for six years more, after which the first rose till it averaged, in the ten years preceding 1875, 10 bushels per acre, and the second, 208. per bushel, the quantity having increased by about 23 per cent., and the price by about 25 per cent.2 Now, during the period in which these improvements have occurred, it is a noteworthy fact, that the agricultural population of France has decreased about II per cent. (the figures are 21,992,000 in 1851, and 19,598,000 for 1866),3 numbers having, from time to time, resorted to the towns. Thus, it is quite apparent that the lot of the agriculturalists, who are almost wholly proprietors of the soil, must, with respect at least to this important crop, have improved considerably. But the evidence of agricultural progress and ameli1 Annuaire de l'Economie Politique et de la Statistique, 1876, par M. Maurice Block, pp. 7–13. 2 Ibid. pp. 141, 142; also Statistique de la France, pp. 42-44. 3 L'Europe Politique et Sociale, par Maurice Block, Paris, 1869. oration is all in the same direction, and we shall proceed, further, to adduce that evidence. Whereas, from time immemorial, the systems of cultivation in the centre and eastern districts of the country have been those of the biennial and triennial rotations, wherein the soil necessarily lies fallow in the largest degree, now these are being displaced largely in favour of a more ample rotation. This is more particularly the case in the north, where capital applied to the soil has produced the most beneficial effects, not only in enabling the cultivator to spare the fallow, but to reduce the net cost of working the soil at the same time that the produce is more abundant than formerly. The greater culture of wheat, which has taken the place of inferior grains, has been one of the effects of such an improvement, and it may be said that whenever such a change happens, it is an indication that the condition of the people is improved. And, again, the increased physical strength derivable from the substitution of a superior for an inferior grain, enables the cultivator to perform his duties the more energetically, and, in consequence, to reap the more valuable and abundant crops. Not only, as has already been said, has the productiveness of this important cereal been increased-and in half-acentury the relation of crop to seed has risen from 5.50 to 7.30, and not only has its price increased, but the extent of the land appropriated to it has increased from 11,360,000 acres, in 1815, to 17,290,000 in 1869, being at the rate of more than 50 per cent., and that increase has taken place more from a displacement in the cultivation of inferior cereals than from the appropriation of lands that were formerly waste. But the progression in the productiveness of wheat characterises other crops as well. Thus, the crop that is formed by a mixture of wheat and rye, though not much |