↑ ISOL emp the 27 Chet bere the Cutte mile ui vce i shall farmers Donji na & Teymistry data e in was to the dukrel dece 11. at pensili prigritos to of the most persevering and are ng dewmpoor Now Mr. de Stuart Mil sets forward the feature & mean buustry as coe perillar to pesas proprietors He says Those who have mes only one country of peast progresses always tink the inhabitants of that eventry the Lost in lustrious In the world. There is as de dialc among observers with what feature in the oction of the peasantry this pre-eminent industry is connected. It is the magic of property" which, in the works of Arthur Young, turns and into gold.” It is surely Lecessary to say, however, that this feature of proprietorship is not altogether a distinctive one, and that there are others besides who will work equally hard; namely those who, proprietors or not, are looking forward to the hope of earning a competency or more than that, whether it be in agriculture or industry. It is true this virtue of proprietorship, being hereditary, is likely to be a fixed, constant, and persistent one, for the circumstance of working for a competency is always in that case presumed to exist. But it is presumed in the particular cases of tenant farming that the land has been let on reasonable terms-that is, on terms which are likely, with proper work, attention, and management on the part of the farmer, to lead to a competency; and it is rather striking that, with such preponderating disadvantages as he labours under from the want of suitable appliances, he still labours assiduously along with the members of his household, straining every nerve and sinew if it be so fond is he of his independence-only to make ends meet. It must therefore be said that the small farmer is at such a serious disadvantage that he cannot, notwithstanding the characteristic hard labour of himself and his family, cope at all successfully with the disadvantages of his position. It is essentially one that can never be economical; it is the contention of muscles with machinery; and as that battle has been clearly won by the latter in manufacturing industry, so will it also be as clearly won in agriculture. Indeed in the improvement of the machinery which exists, in the introduction of new machinery, in the discovery of a new artificial manure, in the introduction of a new feeding stuff, or in some other way, an additional reason is added from time to time to those which have previously existed why large farms, with their capacity for the economical application of large capital, must now be relatively the most economically productive, and therefore the most profitable for all concerned. In former times this may not have been the case. When everyone worked with his arms, whether at the loom, the bench, or the plough, there would be no great difference between the profitableness of small and large farms, and he who was cultivating proprietor of either would probably possess that advantage which flows from the prosecution of his work with an unremitting industry; he then might have been in the capacity of a small proprietary farmer able to compete with the tenant of a much larger farm. But in countries where the agricultural population for the most part own the land and cultivate it as farmers, a considerable proportion of the whole number of farms are frequently of such a small size as to be comparatively unprofitable to work—that is to say, when compared with those farms whereon every can modem agricltural improvement on be ecconcialș cariei into ežera. In the continental countries of Europe the people generally own the sill to a large extent, and cultivate it as farmers of their own properties: and where large estates exist, the introduction of new appliances proceeds from the large to the small, and proceeds slowly. Why this is so must be soon evilent; for the land was already cultivated by resilent proprietors before the introduction of these new appliances, and their use upon the smaller farms could not save labour already there, until after that labour had time to draft itself off to the industrial centres, and its only effect at first if introduced might be to assist the family to cultivate with more ease, and leave time disposable for the prosecution of domestic industries. These latter, however, except in few instances, have been supplanted by the factory, and there could therefore be little inducement to the small peasant proprietor to introduce those appliances which were to save a labour that could not otherwise be very readily utilised. It follows therefore that, as in the slow extinction of the hand-loom and other manual oocupations, the slow extinction of a laborious manual cultivation of the soil will the less readily take place where the whole surface of a country is divided into fields and properties too minute for the proper application of expensive machines and new processes, where the resident population has been accustomed to do all the labour required, and do not therefore feel the need for new appliances. The result is that there is an immense amount of labour performed by peasant proprietors, and a comparatively small amount of capital expended. In course of time those who are most successfully laborious will have been able from their hidden stores to purchase more more land until their properties become larger than they were, and at present indeed the realised capital of small proprietors appears generally to be more willingly expended in adding to their present lands than in improving them. There seems to be no limit to the amount of labour bestowed, but a strict limit to the amount of capital expended on small properties; and this is not surprising, since the capital is realised with much more difficulty, much more slowly, and with many more reverses in agriculture than it is in industrial undertakings, particularly in Britain, where, as already pointed out, the rapid and economical possession of abundant minerals gives the miner, the manufacturer, and the merchant an immense superiority in the realisation of property. The circumstances, however, of different countries are extremely different; and though no doubt the existence of large farms must confer great advantages in the cultivation of the soil, there are other considerations that cannot be neglected in considering the fitness of a particular system for any particular country or district. In France, for instance, there are decidedly fewer opportunities for the rural population betaking themselves to industrial centres than there are in this country, and as a consequence there is relatively a larger agricultural population and a lesser industrial one, and the same is the case with Prussia and generally with the other continental European countries. That being so, a proportionately less agricultural produce is demanded for the support of the industrial portion of the population. It happens, also, in France, and in some at any rate of these other countries, that the greater part of the soil is cultivated, and there fore there is for any defined area a less call for high farming than there is in Great Britain, where only a certain limited amount of the country is cultivated, and large tracts, as in Scotland and Ireland, remain moorland and waste. It is therefore evident that to satisfy the wants of the European populations generally there is not much call for that high farming which is alone found to be fully remunerative in this country; and in proportion as the introduction of machinery and the extension of capital in industrial undertakings tends to augment the industrial population and reduce the agricultural, there is afforded the opportunity for supplying the place of the labourers who have left the fields by an adequate introduction of new machinery. Indeed the growth of the industrial population and the reduction of the agricultural will proceed from the introduction of new industrial appliances, and be the forerunner of new agricultural appliances. But this movement can only take place where minerals are being more readily obtained than formerly, or the progress of invention enables their being more fully utilised; and it is no proof of defect in any agricultural system that this process takes place more slowly in one country than in another-in France, for instance, than in Great Britain-but merely a circumstance altogether independent of agricultural systems, though sufficient in the long run to affect them. But, upon the other hand, let us suppose that a country such as Great Britain has exhausted her mineral resources-which probably enough she will do as regards coal at the present increasing rate of consumption, to the depth of four thousand feet, in from two to three centuries -then it is apparent that a considerable proportion of the population presently engaged in mining and its allied occupations will necessarily be engaged otherwise, and in all probability they will fall back upon agriculture, for it is inconceivable that industrial employments will continue equally active and important when the great source of them an abundant supply of the raw materials-disappears. In course of centuries, if the world continues to act with regard to the mineral resources of the earth |