succeeding cultivator, it would be a very good and favourable one for the farmers. But such is not the case the present tenant pays off both principal and interest, and the future payment of 3 per cent. or more is made by the cultivators to the proprietor in name of improved land, all of which improvement has really been effected by one tenant in course of a single, say nineteen years', lease, and the proprietor therefore has expended nothing, for the money may be obtained from the State on the security of the land.

It is, therefore, not the fact that the proprietor earns a less, or a less immediate, return for his capital than the tenant; for in all these improvements where he does not advance the funds himself-and he has no great inducement when improvement loans are to be had on easy terms to do so-he actually gets them executed for nothing, and therefore their value is to him a pure gain, and does not possess the character of a percentage at all. It is said, however, that had it not been for the inherent qualities of the soil those improvements could not have been effected; and those qualities being recognised by the tenant, he utilises the capital expended during the currency of the lease to his own satisfaction, deriving from its employment a proper marketable return. That, no doubt, is often or generally quite true; but it is none the less so that he does not derive that benefit from the continual improvement of the soil which he would do if it were his own, and if he were the cultivating proprietor, and that in consequence he has not that inducement to its improvement brought so strongly before him as if he shared continually in its results, instead of expecting only to receive the marketable return for the employment of his capital.

The interest, therefore, which the cultivators of a country possess in its rapid and constant improvement,

CH. VI.

THE TENANT-AT-WILL.

215

when they are the proprietors of the soil, is lost when they are simply tenants, and expect to reap, and do reap, only a reward for their own toil and the employment of their capital. The gradual increase of population and wealth which takes place normally in a country enjoying a stable government and a settled condition, thereby raises the value of the soil for agricultural purposes; and that value ought, with respect to the highest considerations of economy, to be reaped at least chiefly by the agriculturalists, and that can be attained only in the maximum degree when they are the proprietors of the soil.

When, however, upon the other hand the agriculturalists are not only tenants, but tenants-at-will, and subject to their rents being changed at any time, then indeed there is no prospect for them of permanent improvement, and no prospect either of the land being made to produce an increasing crop by which an increasing population, whether agricultural or industrial, may be adequately clothed and fed. And, as we have already seen in Ireland, and to some extent in Britain, these unfortunate conditions are at work.

We have, therefore, before us the vices and virtues of the two systems of extensive estates farmed by tenants, and of small subdivided lands farmed by proprietors, and we see that the circumstances of their profitable existence are essentially dissimilar.

However, if we regard tenancy and proprietorship as cultivating where the country is for the most part agricultural, we shall see that where the former, as it largely is, is subject to alteration in its conditions within short periods affecting the amount of produce that falls to the cultivator, it is completely unsuccessful; and where the latter exists, even though to a limited extent, the country generally is fully cultivated, and the maximum of exer

tion in cultivation, and of prudence and thrift in saving, is exhibited by the cultivators.

The condition of contentment which thus appears to have its being in a certain secure possession of an amount of land sufficient to enable its cultivator to procure, jointly perhaps with an additional occupation, a competence for himself and his family, is one which lies at the root of social stability. As in France, where the contented cultivator tills his own land, depending on its produce alone, so elsewhere, when the inhabitants are peasant proprietors, and not industrial workers, the condition, though contented, is not rapidly a prosperous one, and the population is one verging naturally on the stationary condition. In a country such as Great Britain, however, where country life is not so attractive as in the South, the rewards of industrial life will be relatively all the more prized; and particularly will this be so when the ability to apply capital to industrial undertakings is, where mineral wealth is so abundant, so perfectly easy. We should therefore expect to find that the workmen of the North would be, on the whole, more prosperous with a comparatively small-sized holding a large garden or small field of perhaps from one quarter to half an acre, that would fitly form rather the occupation of a meagre but joyous leisure than the sphere of severe and prolonged exertion. The change that is actually taking place where there is sufficient freedom, appears generally to be towards a union of the two kinds of occupation. Where rural employments have been hitherto the sole resource, as in Norway, the inhabitants are becoming alive to the great advantage which industrial employments would present, and they are therefore successfully endeavouring to introduce manufactures by co-operative associations. In this country, upon the other hand, the desideratum is an addition to the present too exclusive town life, and

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SMALL FREEHOLDS.

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confinement of a certain measure of rural employment; and this would be, as we have already seen, immensely beneficial to those workmen who could contrive to purchase their own little properties. Contentment would then reign in the minds of the people. That chronic quarrelling with his position, which unfortunately is to a large extent the characteristic feature of the British workman, and the perpetual inclination to strike work which is often disastrously followed by action, would disappear at least largely; for when the possibility of an individual being dispossessed of his freehold as the result of an unsuccessful strike, would present itself to his mind, there would undoubtedly be less inclination manifested to do battle with present fortune. There would be less improvidence and recklessness in the conduct of trades unionists than there is at present, and a more conservative spirit would grow up that would foster action tending to enrich the workman as well as to preserve him contented.

There is an elasticity about that system of binal occupation which exists in many continental countries; for the possession of patches of land by workmen, besides engaging their spare labour, which is indeed a refreshment to them, forms a resource in periods of industrial adversity that cannot be estimated too highly. Such plots or patches would afford the workman an opportunity of remuneration in proportion to the exact amount of the labour expended, so that they would form a school wherein the greatest stimulus to exertion would be supplied. It is unfortunately too clearly seen that, the more extensive the ramifications and dimensions of trading operations become, the larger are the fluctuations which characterise them; and while the capitalist may wait easily, it may be with some loss of capital, for the return of the tide, the workman, if he possesses savings,

receives, from any investments he may have made, no sufficient or suitable return. The result, therefore, to him is entirely disastrous; there is nothing left upon which he may break his fall, or assist himself again to rise. It may be objected here that trade union funds do so; but unfortunately in their character they rather tend to render the workman more reckless, for they are essentially communistic; they belong to no one in particular, but to all; therefore no one individual cares to exert himself rather than expend them.

In the one situation, therefore, which is happily that of many countries, where the workmen possess and cultivate pieces of land, there is a material relief in periods of industrial adversity afforded in a healthy way by their produce; in the other situation, which is that of Great Britain and Ireland, there can be no such satisfactory relief; and if the manufacturer chooses to stop his works rather than to proceed at a loss, his workmen are thrown idle, there are no resources for their energies, and material followed by moral wretchedness and despair seize them. The tendency then will be towards a pauperisation of those who are thrown out of employment, and a consequent reduction in the efficient working strength, or the effective population, of the country.

It may, however, be noticed that though the present state of the law practically prohibits the workman or even the middle-class individual from purchasing a suitable plot of ground-for there are no such plots to be had, and if there were he knows that the expenses of transfer would be too considerable and uncertain—a system of allotments has been already extensively adopted in the agricultural districts. This system has been introduced in face of great opposition and in spite of powerful prejudices, for it was supposed that the agricultural