i. peasant-proprietorship in the valley. ii. landlordism. iii. the era of capital. iv. obstructions to the free interaction of capital and land—their effects, and probable removal. v. co-operative farming not a step forwards

but what said jaques?

did he not moralise the spectacle?—shakespeare.

this chapter is to be a disquisition, after the manner of the philosophers, at all events, in its length, on peasant-proprietorship as now existing in the valley of zermatt, or rather of the visp; and on alternative systems. i do not invite anyone to read it, indeed, i at once announce its contents and its length, for the very purpose of inducing those who have no liking for disquisitions in general, or for disquisitions on such subjects, to skip it, and to proceed to the next chapter, where they will find the continuation of the narrative of our little excursion. my primary object in writing it was to ascertain, through the test of black and white, whether what i had been led to think upon these matters possessed sufficient coherence. 29i now, with the diffidence one must feel who ventures upon such ground, submit it to the judgment of those who take some interest in questions of this kind.

bearing in mind that the subject is not a lively one, i will endeavour so to put what i have to say as that not much effort may be required to understand my meaning. from all effort, however, i cannot exempt the reader of the chapter, should it find one; for he will have, as he goes along, to determine for himself whether the facts alleged are the facts of the case, whether any material ones have been overlooked, and whether the inferences are drawn from the facts legitimately. he will not be in a position to allow what is presented to him to pass unquestioned; for he will be, himself, the counsel on the other side, as well as the jury.

i. the figures i am about to use do not pretend to accuracy, or even to any close approximation to accuracy. some figures, but what figures is of no great consequence, are necessary for the form of the argument, and for rendering it intelligible. if they possessed the most precise accuracy that would not at all strengthen it. those i employ, i retain merely because they were the symbols with which, in my two walks through the valley, i endeavoured to work out the inquiry.

30suppose, then, that the valley of the visp contains 4,000 acres of irrigated meadow and of corn and garden ground; and that each family is composed of husband and wife, and of not quite four children. the average here in england is, i believe, four-and-a-half children to a marriage. marriages, probably, take place at a later period of life in the valley than in this country, and, therefore, the average number of children there will be smaller. let, then, the grandfathers and grandmothers who may be living, and the unmarried people there may be, bring up the average of each family to six souls.

we will now suppose that the husband will require a pound and a half of bread a day, that will be about nine bushels of wheat a-year; and that the wife and children will require each a pound a day; that will be about thirty bushels more, or thirty-nine bushels in all. from what i saw of the land in the valley i suppose that it will not produce more than twenty-six bushels an acre. whether its produce be wheat, or rye, or barley, will make no difference to the argument. an acre and a half will then be necessary for the amount of bread-stuff that will be required for each family.

a family, we will take a well-to-do one, will also require three cows. deducting the time the cows are on the common pasture on the mountains, each cow will require, for the rest of the year, two tons of hay. that may be the produce of one acre of their grassland, 31for some of it is cut three times a-year, but most of it only twice, the second and third crops being light.

they will not want for their own consumption the whole of the produce of the three cows. a surplus, however, of this produce is necessary, because it is from that that they will have the means for purchasing the shoes, the tools and implements, and whatever else they absolutely need, but cannot produce themselves. the cows will then require three acres.

but we will suppose that by the use of straw, and by other economies in the keep of their cows, they manage to reduce the quantity of hay that would otherwise be consumed. this will set free a little of their land for flax, hemp, haricots, cabbages, potatoes, &c. the three last will go some way towards lessening the quantity of bread-stuff they will require. we may, therefore, set down the breadth of cultivated land needed for the maintenance, according to their way of living, of our family of six souls, at four acres.

the 4,000 acres will thus maintain 1,000 families. this will give our valley a population of 6,000 souls.

here, perhaps, the rigid economist would stop. it would be enough for him to have ascertained the laws which regulate, under observed circumstances, the production and the distribution of wealth. but as neither the writer nor the readers of these pages 32are rigid economists, we will, using these facts only as a starting point, proceed to ulterior considerations. the question, indeed, which most interests us is not one of pure economy, but one which, though dependent on economical conditions, is in itself moral and intellectual; and, therefore, we go on to ask what kind of life, what kind of men and women, does this state of things produce?

in such a population, the elements of life are so simple, so uniform, and so much on the surface, that there will be no difficulty in getting at the answers to our questions. there is not a single family that has the leisure needed for mental cultivation, or for any approximation to the embellishments of life. they each have just the amount of land which will enable them, with incessant labour, and much care and forethought, to keep themselves above absolute want. subdivision might, possibly, in some cases be carried a little further, but things would then only become worse. towards this there is always a tendency. but, for reasons we shall come to presently, there is no tendency at all in the other direction. intellectual life, therefore, is impossible in the valley. the conditions requisite for it are completely absent.

with the moral life, however, it is very far from being so. of moral educators, one of the most efficient is the possession of property; the kind of education it gives being, of course, dependent on the 33amount and kind of property. for instance: the simplicity and gentility of a large fortune in three per cent. consols educates its possessor. it does not teach him forethought, industry, or self-denial. he may be improvident, idle, self-indulgent, and still his means of living may not be thereby diminished; nor will anything he can do improve them. nor, furthermore, will the management of his property bring him into such relations with his fellow men, that, at every step and turn, he has to consider their wants and rights, and to balance them against his own. nor will anything connected with his property teach him the instability of human affairs, for his is just the only human possession that is exempt from all risks and changes. now the non-teaching of these moral qualities is an education, the outcome of which is likely to be a refined selfishness. an equal fortune derived from commerce, trade, or manufactures, teaches other lessons, almost we may say lessons of the very opposite kind. he, whose position depends on buying and selling, and producing, and on the human agencies he must make use of, on new discoveries, and on a variety of natural occurrences, will estimate life and his fellow men very differently from his neighbour, who has nothing at all to do except receiving, and spending his dividends. we are taking no account of individual character, and of the thousand circumstances and accidents, which may overrule, in any 34particular case, the natural teaching of either of these two kinds of property: we are only speaking generally; and are taking them as illustrations, with which we are all familiar, of a character-forming power every kind of property possesses.

looking, then, at the property possessed by these visp-side families in the same way, we can readily understand the moral effect it will have upon them. it will enforce what it teaches with irresistible power, because it will be acting on every member of the community in precisely the same way, throughout every day of the lives of all of them, generation after generation. such teaching there is no possibility of withstanding. and what it teaches in this undeniable fashion,—undeniable because the virtues taught are to them the very conditions of existence,—are very far from being small moralities, for they are industry, prudence, patience, frugality, honesty.

without industry their little plots of land could not support them; not the industry of the irishman, in the days before the potato-famine, who set his potatoes in the spring, and took them up in the autumn, without finding much to do for the rest of the year; but an industry which must be exercised, sometimes under very adverse circumstances, throughout the whole twelve months. every square yard of every part of their land represents so much hard labour, for nowhere has land been so hard to win. this fact is 35always before their eyes, and is in itself always a lesson to them. and this hard-won land, reminding them of the industry of those who were before them, has still, always, to be protected against the ravages of winter storms, and its irrigation kept in order. and every hard-won square yard must be turned to the best account. and all must labour in doing this. their cows, too, require as much attention as their families. for them they must toil unremittingly in their short summer: they must follow them up into the mountains, and they must collect and store up for them the provender they will need in the long winter. and they must be industrious not only in the field, but equally in the house. they cannot afford to buy, and, therefore, everything, that can be, must be done, and made, at home. they cannot allow any portion of their time, or any capacity their land has for producing anything useful, to run to waste. there can be no fallows, of any kind, here.

with their long winters and scanty means, frugality, prudence, forethought, are all as necessary as industry. these are the indispensable conditions for eking out the consumption of the modest store of necessaries their life-long industry provides. if they were as wasteful, as careless, as improvident as our wages-supported poor, the ibex and chamois might soon return to the valley.

it is these necessity-imposed virtues which save 36the valley on the one hand from depopulation, and on the other from becoming overpeopled. our labourers, and artisans, and operatives, who depend on wages, as soon as they have got wages enough to support a wife, marry. the general, almost the universal, rule with them is to marry young. the young men and maidens on visp-side, not being dependent on wages, but on having a little bit of land, sufficient to support life, do not marry till they have come into possession of this little bit of land. early marriages, therefore, are not the rule with them. the discipline of life, such as it is in the valley, has taught them—and a very valuable lesson it is—to bide their time.

another virtue, which comes naturally to them, is honesty. the honesty of the valley appears to an englishman unaccountable, arcadian, fabulous. the ripe apples and the ripe plums hang over the road without a fence, for land is too precious for fences, and within reach of the hand of the passer-by; but no hand is reached out to touch them. why is such forbearance unimaginable here? the reason is that, where only a few possess, the many not having the instincts of property, come to regard the property of the few as, to some extent, fair game for them. it is their only chance—their only hunting-ground. this is a way in which, without sanctioning a law which will act prejudicially to themselves, they can secure their share of the plums and apples nature provides. 37but, when all have property, each sees that the condition on which his own plums and apples will be respected is that he should himself respect the plums and apples of other people. this idea is at work in everybody’s mind. the children take to the idea, and to the practice of it, as naturally as they did to their mother’s milk. honesty becomes an element of the general morality. it is in the air, which all must breathe.

here then is a picture that is most charming. how cruelly hard has nature been! look at the cold, heartless mountains. look upon their ice and storm-engendering heights. see how the little valley below lies at their mercy. consider how, year by year, they fight against its being extorted from their dominion. yet the feeble community in the valley, by their stout hearts and virtuous lives, continue to make it smile on the frowning mountains. how pleasing to the eye and to the thought, is the sight! and what enhances the charm it possesses is the sense of its thorough naturalness. there is nothing artificial about it; and so there is nothing that can to the people themselves suggest discontent. their condition, in every particular, is the direct result of the unobstructed working of natural causes, such as they exist in man himself, and in environing circumstances. whatever may be its drawbacks, or insufficiencies, they can in no way be traced to human 38legislation. how unwilling are we to contrast with this charming scene—but this is just what we have to do—the destitution, the squalor, and the vice, not of our great cities only, but even of our visp-sides.

but, first, we will endeavour, by the light of the ideas we outside people have on these subjects, to complete our estimate of the worth of the state of things we are contemplating; of this oasis, the sight of which is so refreshing to those whose lot it is to be familiar with, and to dwell in, the hard wilderness of the world.

its virtues are, doubtless, very pleasing to contemplate; but they are not of quite the highest order. the industry before us is very honourable. the mind dwells on the sight of it with satisfaction. but, as it only issues in the barest subsistence, the observation of this somewhat clouds our satisfaction. there are, too, higher forms of industry of which nothing can be known here—the industry of those who live laborious days, and scorn delights, from the desire to improve man’s estate, to extort the secrets of nature for his benefit, to clear away obstacles which are hindering men from seeing the truth, to add to the intellectual wealth of the race, to smoothe the path of virtue, and make virtue itself appear more attractive. such industry is more honourable, and more blessed both to him who labours and to those who participate in the fruits of his labour. and such prudence, frugality, 39and forethought as are practised in the valley are very honourable, and the mind dwells on the sight of them, too, with satisfaction. but he who belongs to the outside world will here again be disposed to repeat the observation just made. it is true that that man’s understanding and heart must be out of harmony with the conditions of this life, and therefore repulsive to us, who does not gather up the fragments that nothing be lost, but when this is done only for self, and those who are to us as ourselves, though so done unavoidably through the necessity of the case, it is somewhat chilling and hardening. and it is not satisfactory that so much thought and care should be expended only upon the best use of the means of life—those means, too, being sadly restricted; for a higher application of these virtues would be to the best use of life itself. and so, again, with respect to their honesty. this is a virtue that is as rare as honourable; and the mind dwells on the sight of it with proportionate satisfaction. but its application to plums and apples is only its beginning. it has far loftier and more arduous, and more highly rewarded forms. it may be acted on under difficulties, and applied to matters, not dreamt of in the valley. it may rise into the form of social and political justice, in which form it prompts a man to consider the rights of others, especially of the most helpless and depressed, and even of the vicious, as well as his 40own; and not to use his own advantages and power in such a way as to hurt or hinder them: but, rather, to consider that it is due to their unhappy circumstances and weakness, that he should so use his power, and good fortune, as to contribute to the redress of the evils of their ill fortune.

attractive, then, as is the contemplation of the moral life of the inhabitants of the valley, it is not in every respect satisfactory. a higher level may be attained. after all, it is the moral life rather of an ant-hill, or of a bee-hive, than of this rich and complex world to which we belong. and even if it were somewhat more elevated than it is, still there would remain some who would be unable to accept it, as worthy of being retained without prospect of change or improvement; and their reason would be, that man does not live by, or for, morality only. the worthy exercise of the intellectual powers is necessary for their idea of the complete man; and here everything of this kind is found to be sorely deficient. on the whole, then, in respect of each of the three ingredients of human well-being, a thoroughly equipped life, intellectual activity, and the highest form of virtue, we feel that something better,—with respect, indeed, to the two first something very much better,—is attainable, than what exists in the charming oasis before us.

41ii. i now invite the reader to proceed with me to the consideration of how different economical conditions, such as our experience enables us to imagine, would modify the state of things we have been contemplating. for instance, suppose visp-side were in scotland or england, then its 4,000 acres might, and it is not unlikely that they would, be only a part of the estate of some great landlord. let us endeavour to make out the effects this would have on its inhabitants.

the most obvious result would be that the population would be diminished by more than a half. at present the produce of the valley, with no very considerable deductions, is consumed in the valley. what is produced is what is required for supplying its large population with the first wants of life. but this will no longer be the case. the land will be let. we will suppose that this change has been completely effected; and that its irrigated meadows, with the contiguous little plots of corn-land, have been formed into farms, and that all is now treated in the way those who rent them find it pays best to manage them. we will suppose they have to pay a rent of 30s. an acre. the rent of the valley will then be 6,000l. a-year. how will this sum be made up? cheese, of course, will be the main means. the young bullocks and the old cows will come next. we will take little credit for corn or potatoes, 42because it is evident that not nearly so much of them will be grown as was done under the old system; for much of the mountain corn-land will not pay now for cultivation with hired labour.

the economist, pure and simple, may say that this is all right. the course of events must be submitted to. whatever they dictate is best; and best as it is. interference with natural laws is always bad. the cheese and the cattle will sell for as much as they are worth. the sovereigns they will fetch are worth as much as the produce. there will be no diminution of wealth. but, however, it has to be proved that the new system is unavoidable in the sense of being either a natural step in the unobstructed course of human affairs, or, as some would tell us, the natural consummation of their long course, now at last happily effected. perhaps it may be possible to show that there has been serious interference with their natural evolution; so serious as greatly to affect their character. and, if so, then the question of whether or no there has been any loss of value does not arise, for the antecedent question may render its discussion unnecessary. be, however, these matters as they may, they do not cover all the ground we are desirous of investigating. we are thinking not of exchangeable wealth only, but also of men and women; and they, perhaps, may be regarded as wealth in its highest form; a kind of wealth, in which, 43if the men and women are not corrupt or counterfeit, but good and true, all may to some extent participate, and be the better for.

under the system we are now considering, it jars against a sense of something or other in the minds of many, to see so much of the results of the labour of the people of the valley passing away from them, never to return in any form or degree. as far as they are concerned it is a tribute they are paying to the man who owns the land of the valley. and whether it be, year by year, paid to him, or whether all this cheese and all these cattle be every year on a stated day collected and burnt at the mouth of the valley; or the price, for which they may have been sold, thrown into the mid-ocean, would make no difference to them. they will get no advantage from it at all, for it is evident that a man who has an income of at least 6,000l. a-year will never live in the valley of the visp. he will, perhaps, have his mansion on the bank of the lake of geneva; or perhaps at paris: at all events, it will be somewhere at a distance. the case of so many bales of calico being sent out of manchester, to all parts of the world, is not similar. they are sent out for the very purpose of coming back again in the form of what will not only support those who produce them, but will also, if trade be good, increase the fund that supports the trade, that is to say, will increase the 44number of those who in various ways are supported by the trade: hence the growth of manchester. nor is it the same thing as so many quarters of corn being sent from america to this country, for in that case also the price of the corn returns to the hands of those who grew it. their corn-fields have produced for them, only in a roundabout fashion, a golden harvest; and they have, themselves, the consumption of this harvest, precisely in the same way as the now existing visp-side population have the direct consumption of the produce of their little plots of land. some, of course, of the price of the cheese and cattle sent away will enable the farmers to live and to pay their labourers; but none of the 6,000l. a-year will come back in any form.

but the point now actually before us is the effect this change will produce on the amount of population. in order that the land might be let profitably, it was necessary to clear it of its old proprietors, for they could pay no rent at all. their little estates were barely sufficient, with the most unremitting labour, and the most careful frugality, to support life. the valley has now been formed into cheese-farms; and we will suppose that for keeping up the irrigation, cutting the grass, tending the cows in summer on the mountains, and during the winter doing everything for them, and for cultivating whatever amount of land is still cropped with corn and potatoes, five men are 45wanted for a hundred acres. this will give for the 4,000 acres 200 men. let each man, as before, represent a family of six souls. here, for the labourers and their families, will be a population of 1,200. we will also suppose that, under the circumstances of the valley, the average size of the farms is not more than fifty acres. this will give eighty farmers. if their households average eight souls, we have 640 more. these, and the labourers, will not, as was formerly done, under the old order of things, by every family, produce themselves pretty nearly all that is necessary for their households. it will not be so, because the farmers, who must also attend to their farms, will require many things that none required before; and because the labourers, having to give all their time and strength for wages, will be obliged to buy almost all that they will require. this will necessitate the introduction into the valley of a considerable number of tradesmen. we will suppose a hamlet every five miles, in which, besides farmers and labourers, will reside eight tradesmen and petty shopkeepers. that is five hamlets, and forty tradesmen and shopkeepers. these, with six to a family, will add 240 to the population. these different contributories, then, will raise the total to 2,080. as the distances will remain what they were, and as there will be more stir and ambition among a population of farmers and shopkeepers, than there was formerly among the peasant proprietors, 46we will take the number of school-teachers as much the same under either system. the reduction of the population to one-third of its former amount will somewhat reduce the number of priests; but as thought will now be more active, and, therefore, more varied, this reduction will be counterbalanced by an increase in the number of prophets.

the next step in our inquiry is, how will this revolution affect the character of the population of the valley? we have seen that under the old system their whole character was the direct result of the fact that everyone was either the actual, or the prospective, possessor of a small plot of land, just enough to sustain the life of a family. that was the root out of which their lives grew; and their industry, frugality, forethought, patience, and honesty were the fruits such lives as theirs produced. that root is now dead. the conditions of life are different; and with different conditions have come corresponding differences of character. for instance, we all know that those who labour primarily for others, that others may make the profit that will accrue from their labour, are not so industrious as those who labour entirely for themselves. nor will they have the same forethought, because their dependence is on wages, and wages require no forethought. formerly forethought was a condition of existence. they are also now in a school which is a bad one for frugality and patience, and 47which is very far from being a good one for honesty. these, however, are still the main constituents of morality, for in them there can be no change, because morality is the regulative order of the family and of society: and now, with respect to all of these points, among the mass of the population, there is, necessarily a deterioration. nor is petty trade, at least so says the experience of mankind, favourable to morality. as to those who hire the land, we will suppose that the more varied relations, than any which existed under the old system, into which they have been brought with their neighbours, and with the world outside the valley, have in some cases had an elevating and improving effect. the moral influences, however, of occupations of this kind are far from being universally good, because those who live by the labour of others, will in many cases be of opinion, that their own interests are antagonistic to the interests of those they employ in such a sense, that it is to their advantage to pay low wages, which means to lessen the comforts, and even the supply of necessaries, to those by whose labour they live. this may be an unavoidable incident of the relation in which the two stand towards each other, but it is not conducive to the result we are now wishing to find.

the intellectual gains and losses are harder to estimate. as to the labourers, one cannot believe that a body of men that has been lowered morally 48has been raised intellectually. among the tradesmen class there will be some who will have more favourable opportunities for rising into a higher intellectual life than any had among the old peasant-proprietors. and among the small occupiers of land, for the farms only average fifty acres, these chances will, perhaps, be still greater. but all this will not come to much. the great question here is about the one family, for whose benefit mainly, almost, indeed, exclusively, the whole of the change has been brought about. this family now stands for 4,000 of the old inhabitants of the valley. one of the greatest of all possible revolutions has been carried out in its favour, for it is a revolution that has swept away the greater part of the population, and completely altered the material, moral, and intellectual life of all that remained. we will, however, suppose that they are everything that can be expected of a family so favourably circumstanced. that their morality is pure and elevated. that, intellectually, they are refined and cultivated. that they promote art. that science is at times their debtor. that among its members have been men who have advanced the thought of their day, and have made additions to the common fund of intellectual wealth; and others who have done their country good service in peace and in war.

when i say that this family stands in the place of the 4,000 who have disappeared from the valley, i 49limit the observation to the valley, for i do not mean that the population of the world has been diminished to that extent to make space for them, because the cheese and cattle sent out of the valley for their 6,000l. a-year, will contribute to the support elsewhere of a great many people who must work, and so live, in order that they may be able to purchase them.

but to return; those who were not satisfied with the original arcadian state of things, we may be sure will not be satisfied with that which we are now imagining has taken its place. for nothing will satisfy them, if there must be a change, except some such condition of things as will work as favourably both for morality, and for intellect, as that did for morality alone; and which will, at the same time, provide, generally, a better supplied material life than that did.

we have now endeavoured, first, to analyze the land-system of the valley, such as it presents itself to the eye of a contemplative pedestrian; and which may be regarded as the natural working out of proprietorship in land, when it is the sole means of supporting life. we then proceeded to compare with this a system we wot of, carried out to its full-blown development. this second system is what people refer to when they talk of english landlordism. these two forms, however, of the distribution and tenure of land are very far from exhausting all that have existed, and that 50do and that might exist. distribution and tenure are capable of assuming many other forms; and some of these must be considered before we can hope to arrive at anything like a right and serviceable understanding of the matter.

iii. the distinguishing feature of the economical conditions of the present day, and of other conditions as far as they depend on those that are economical, is the existence of capital in the forms and proportions it has now assumed. this has modified, and is modifying, the life of all civilised communities. it is this that has built our great cities, that is peopling the new world, that has liberated the serfs of the russian empire. it leavens all we do, or say, or think. we are what we are, because of it. the tenure and distribution of land, next to capital itself, the most generally used and diffused of all property, originally the only, and till recently the chief, property, cannot escape the influence of this all-pervading and omnipotent agent of change, which everywhere cuts a channel for itself, and finds the means for rising, sooner or later, to its own level. in some places it has affected land in a fashion more or less in accordance with its natural action; in other places in a fashion which has resulted more or less from artificial restrictions: but in some fashion or other it 51affects it everywhere; as it does all man’s belongings, and the whole tenor and complexion of human life.

land, then, was the sole primeval means of supporting life. over large areas of the earth’s surface it is so still. it was so in homeric greece—at that time the most advanced part of europe—though we can trace in its then condition a certain indefinite nebulous capacity for the development of capital, the higher means of supporting life; and which capacity afterwards assumed its true form and action among the ionians and other asiatic greeks, but above all at athens: which accounts for the differences between it and sparta: for it was the existence and employment of capital which made it the nurse and the holy city of intellect; while it was the contempt and the legislative suppression of capital which kept the lacedæmonians, except so far as they were affected by the general influences of greek thought, in the condition of a clan of splendid savages. and what obtained all but absolutely in homeric greece, obtained at that time, as far as we know, quite absolutely over all the rest of europe. in the early ages of roman history, rome was a city of landowners; that is, of landowners living a city life. to understand this fact is to understand its early, and much of its subsequent history. it was so, also, with the neighbouring cities, in the conquest and absorption of which the first centuries of its historic existence were spent: 52they were cities of landowners. as we walk about the streets of disinterred pompeii, we see that in this pleasure-city, even down to the late date of its catastrophe, it was very much so, although the capital of the plundered world had, at that time, for several generations, been flowing, through many channels, into italy. that specimen city, as we may call it, of imperial italy, appears to have been laid up in its envelope of ashes, preserved like an anatomical preparation, for the very purpose of enabling us to understand this luciferous fact.

i need not go on tracing out the subsequent history of land and capital, which would lead, again, to a comparison of the splendid savagery of feudal landowners with the revival of culture in the capital-supported trading communities of the dark ages; and their interaction upon each other: but will pass at once to ourselves. it is very possible now, at all events it is conceivable under the present state of things, that in a large english city—it is more or less so with almost all our cities—there may not be a single owner of agricultural land in its whole population: for i now, as i do throughout this chapter, distinguish land held for agricultural purposes from that which is held merely for residential, or commercial purposes. here, then, is a difference so great that it takes much time and thought to comprehend its extent, its completeness, and its consequences. 53it belongs to a totally different stage of economical, and of social development; as complete as the difference between a caterpillar and a butterfly. the solid strength, the slow movements, the monotonous existence of the former represent the era of land. the nimbleness (capital is of no country), the beauty, the variety of life, but withal the want of solidity of the latter represent the era of capital. it is the wise combination, and harmonious interaction, of the two, which would, and which are destined to, cancel the disadvantages, and secure the advantages of each.

the revolution, that has been effected, is mighty and all-pervading. but because it has not been carried out by invading hosts, ravaged provinces, blazing cities, and bloody battle-fields, it is difficult to bring home to the general understanding that there has been any revolution at all. at its commencement it found those who owned the land of the country, not merely the most powerful order in the state, but quite supreme. it gradually introduced another order of men, those who own capital; and has ended by making them at length the most powerful; and so much so that now, whenever they choose to assert their power, they are supreme. of course there ought not to be any antagonism between the two; but as there is unfortunately, and quite unnecessarily, an artificially created antagonism, there must be collisions 54and conflicts; in which, however, the supremacy must always eventually rest with the strongest.

the progress of this revolution ought to be seen a little in detail. not an acre can be added to the land of the country, but to the capital of the country, already several times as much in value as the whole of the land, and supporting a greater number of lives, there is added a sum of two millions and a half of pounds sterling every saturday night. we will note a few of the steps in the growth of capital. the year 1550 is very far from the date of the recognised appearance of capital in this country: it was even observed that in the previous century there had been an unexampled extension of commerce; but there are good reasons for supposing that the whole of the accumulated capital of the country at that time was less than one year’s purchase of the land. the land, at all events, was worth a great many times as much as all the capital amounted to.

in 1690 the purchase of an estate, of the value of 100,000l., was the wonder of the day.

in the next fifty years bankers were the chief, or only, large purchasers.

in the following half-century the indians came home, and were added to the class.

then, in the last half of the last century, came the manufacturers.

and now the most prominent capitalists, who 55become large purchasers of land, are the coal-owners, and the owners of iron-works, who, however, are accompanied by a cloud of contractors, engineers, merchants, brewers, stock exchange speculators, australians, and even tradesmen, among whom bankers and manufacturers still hold their ground. of course all of these classes who might, do not, become purchasers of agricultural estates; but those who do, show us in what direction we are to look for the great money-lords of the day. and if they are so many—there probably are at this time in newcastle alone, in consequence, just now, of the prosperity of the iron and coal trades, five and twenty houses making, each, its 100,000l. a-year, how many must be the rank and file of the army of capital. the ratio then of capital to land has been completely inverted. at this moment there is disposable capital enough in the country to buy, at its present enhanced price, all the land of the country, three times over. and this stock of capital goes on increasing at the rate of 150,000,000l. a-year.

in the political order, we are indebted to capital for sir robert peel and mr. gladstone, and for their policy; and we may suppose that the policy which capital may dictate will, henceforth, be the policy of every government that will administer the affairs of this country. the land and the proletariat will never combine for the purpose of attempting to make it 56otherwise: for it will never be their interest to do so. capital is both aristocratic and democratic in the best sense of each of these words. it is the cement, and the mainspring of modern societies, and, also, the ladder within them, without which there would be no rising from low to high positions.

and now let us go back to visp-side, bearing in mind the ideas we have been working out. we will, then, suppose that by trade, and commerce, and manufactures, which are both the children and the parents of capital, other means for supporting life have become abundant in the valley. it is easy to make out what will be the effect of this on the dimensions of the, at present, diminutive properties of its one thousand families. land will present itself to the minds of all as what it has really become; that is to say, as only one means among many for the support of life: the many others being the various forms in which capital works. the present subdivision, therefore, of the land will no longer be regarded as an obvious and undeniable necessity. it has, indeed, become only a secondary, and inferior means for supporting life. those engaged in trade and commerce, it will be manifest, are many of them living much better lives than the petty proprietors. the old ideas and practices, then, with respect to land will melt away, and be utterly dissolved. the necessity for 57maintaining them has ceased; and they will cease to be maintained.

at the same time those who have acquired capital by trade, and commerce, and manufactures, will be desirous of investing some of it, perhaps a surplus their business may not require, in land, which must always continue to be the safest, and in some other respects the most desirable form of property. and many of those who have come to wish to retire from the labours and anxieties of business, will have the same desire. so, too, will some who are disposed to prefer agriculture to other kinds of industry; and who are, therefore, desirous of becoming possessed of sufficient land for their purpose, that they may apply to it their capital and intelligence, using it as the raw material of the manufacture towards which they are most attracted. some will merely want a pleasant situation for a home for their families; some a little land around such a home to give them a little pleasant occupation. there will, we will suppose, be no artificial, as there are no natural, obstacles to all of these people buying what they have the means for buying, and the wish to buy; and using what they buy as they please. the properties thus formed will, many of them, be large, in proportion to the amount of surplus capital many will come to possess. but what will be remarkable, in this respect, will be, while the number of landed properties will be very considerable, 58the variety of their dimensions, which will be proportionate to the endlessly varying means of the multitudes, who in an era of capital will be desirous of investing in land, and the variety of uses to which they will be put in accordance with the varying wants and tastes of their owners.

and in these properties, whether great, or small, there will be incessantly at work two directly opposite tendencies. one in the direction of enlargement by inheritance, by marriage, and by larger increases of surplus capital, and of capital retiring from business. the other in the direction of subdivision, through the necessities, or the wishes, of their holders. these necessities may have arisen from the vicissitudes of business, the occurrences of life, and the extravagances and vices of their holders from time to time. or the descendant of a purchaser may wish to capitalise his land, and take the capital back to business; or to place it in some investment more profitable than land. but, at all events, there will be no escaping from the natural, ever-felt, imperious obligation proprietors of land, like all other men, will be under, of providing for their widows and children. this will keep every estate in the condition of liability to subdivision; and must, at intervals, subdivide it. all these may be regarded as natural conditions. they are self-acting, and never-failing; and that they should lead to their natural issue, that 59is to the subdivision of landed estates, is in accordance with good instincts, in no way demoralising, and in every way healthy. their free action exactly accommodates things to the requirements both of individuals and of the times.

what we are now contemplating is the state of things which will be brought about when the natural action of capital, and the natural action of landed property, have been left to take their own unimpeded course in the valley: for it is to the actual and the possible conditions of continental visp-sides, viewed in connection with the actual and the possible conditions of continental cities, rather than to the broad acres and busy cities of wealthy england, that what i am now saying belongs, notwithstanding the appearance, which is unavoidable, of a constant reference to ourselves. their case is not quite identical with ours, either in their existing conditions, or their future possibilities, as will be seen in due time and place, when we come to the distinct, and separate, consideration of our own case. surplus capital, then, and capital withdrawn from business, will always be seeking investment: and as the land of a country is the natural reservoir for a large proportion of all such capital; and as every acre of land is, on our supposition, saleable, as much so as a sack of wheat, or a horse, though at the moment the owner may not be tempted by the price that would be offered for it; 60and as much of the land everywhere is always actually in the market, and on sale; the habit of looking to land as the safest both of temporary and of final investments, will become pretty general amongst all classes of people engaged in business. and amongst the holders of land, those who may wish to woo fortune by going into business, and to increase their incomes by investing the price of their land in some good security, will have nothing to withhold them from disposing of it. estates, that are now in process of formation, will inevitably, when children have to be provided for, or upon the occurrence of any of those other causes we have already referred to, sooner or later enter upon the reverse process of subdivision. the great points to be kept in mind are that every acre, though it may not be actually in the market, is yet, at the will of its owner, marketable; and that, whatever may be the will of its present holder, must, sooner or later, come on the market; and that capital, availing itself of these facilities, naturally takes the direction of the land—in the long run, and to the majority of mankind, the most desirable of all investments; and that this maintains at a high figure the number of proprietors, that class which it is for the interest of the country should be as large as possible: it is obvious that this class will be large, in the era of capital, in every country where the land is within the reach of every man who has capital, 61exactly in proportion to the amount of capital he is desirous of investing in it.

this state of things appears to have some advantages. these may be summed up in the general remark that it is in complete conformity with the wants and conditions of an era of capital, such as that in which we live. let us, however, endeavour to resolve this general remark into its constituent elements. as land is the most attractive of human possessions, the one possession which gives a man a place of his own to stand on in this world, it ought naturally to attract to itself much of the surplus capital of the day, and of capital that is being withdrawn from business. in the state of things, we have been just considering, there is no hindrance to the operation of this tendency. this flow of capital towards the land will make it far more productive than it ever has been under any other system. for capital is nothing in the world but bottled-up labour, reconvertible, at the will of the holder, into actual labour, and the implements and materials and products of labour; and this system secures the advantage that the proprietors shall generally be men who have much capital in proportion to their land; and much of this capital will, of course, be applied to it. more land will be reclaimed, more rocks blasted and buried; irrigating canals and cultivation will be carried higher up the sides of the mountains; and more costly means of 62cultivation applied than are possible under either the peasant-proprietor system, or the large estate system. and this may be a state of things which will not dissatisfy the economist.

it is a state of things which the modern statesman, also, ought to regard with approval; because the possession of land has always, everywhere, been the conservative element in human societies; and the wide diffusion of the proprietorship of land is the only effectual means by which the statesman of the present day can hope to balance, and neutralise, the disturbing action of the large aggregations of population capital has called into being in the great commercial, and manufacturing cities of this era of capital. it ought to be a pleasing, and reassuring sight to him to behold streams of capital and of proprietors constantly flowing off from them towards the land: for in these streams he knows that power is being drawn off from those terrible centres of possible disturbance, which cause him so much anxiety; and that what is thus drawn off from them is being added to the conservative elements of society. so that if the order of society, or any valuable, but, at the moment, misunderstood, institution—misunderstood because things are in an unnatural state—should have to sustain a shock, there would be less power on the side of those who might originate it, and more on the side of those who would have to bear the brunt of it—a state of 63things which would, probably, prevent the shock from ever occurring. whereas to array on one side the land of a country held by a handful of proprietors against on the other side numbers and capital, is both to invite the shock, and at the same time to forbid the existence of the natural means for resisting it.

many great cities are terrible centres of possible disturbance, just because there are artificial barriers which keep asunder the land and its inhabitants on one side, and the cities with their capital and population on the other side. if things were so that streams of those who had had the energy and intelligence requisite for success, and had succeeded, were constantly flowing off from the cities to the land; and back-currents of those, who were desirous of seeking fortune, flowing into the towns from the country; and this is what ought to be the state of things in an era of capital; there would be less opposition of interests and sentiments between the town and the country: they would together form more of an homogeneous system. if the town populations could be brought into some kind of connection with the land, they would then, so far, have given hostages, a material guarantee, to social peace, and order.

neither will they be dissatisfied who are desirous of seeing property so distributed as to favour as much as possible the moral and intellectual condition of the community. property will everywhere be diffused; and 64never being encumbered more than very temporarily, that is never beyond the life of the encumbered holder, for on our supposition it will always pass from hand to hand perfectly unencumbered in every way, its numerous holders in every locality will be in a position to do, and to support, whatever need be done, and supported. take the instance of the support of religion. it would be mischievous under the previously considered system to disestablish a national church, because as all the surplus produce of the valley, in the form of a rent of 6,000l. a-year, is sent out of the valley, there is nothing left in the hands of the population, such as we imagined it had become, to support religion, except in the humblest, that is in a thoroughly unworthy, form. and here we cannot but think about ourselves; and our doing so will contribute somewhat towards bringing us to a better understanding of this particular point. as things now are in this country the portion of the rent which is retained in every parish for the maintenance of religion is in multitudes of cases the only part of the rent that is retained, and spent, on the spot, among those whose labour produces it. no one will deny that this is in many ways an advantage to them. to instance one advantage, it is often the cause of the existence of needed institutions, as was lately seen most conspicuously in the part the clergy took in the establishment and maintenance of schools, which was an undeniable benefit to their poor neighbours, and 65to the country, though at the same time something besides and beyond what they were bound to do for the maintenance of the knowledge and of the services of religion. in many places, too, it is the only part of the rent which supports in the locality a man of education and refinement; a social and political advantage which cannot be denied, or overlooked. and this appropriation of a small portion of the rent has largely benefited literature, and to some extent science. it also gives us a large number of families, who far outnumber those supported by the great bulk of the rent of the country, and are in a very favourable position for bestowing on their sons the best attainable education, carefully supervised. to them we owe multitudes of those who are at all times doing the country, at home and abroad, good service. we may, at the present moment, take as instances the lord chancellor and the chancellor of the exchequer, both of whom were brought up in rural parsonages. surely it would be a local and a national benefit if more of the rent of the land were somewhat similarly conditioned. and perhaps the greater part of it would be under the system we are now considering. and in addition to this much other property in the form of capital, belonging to such owners of the land, would be brought into each locality, some of which would be sunk in the land, and some retained in securities paying interest and dividends, which would 66be spent on the spot. under such a state of things there would be abundance of local means for the voluntary support of all needed institutions, and of religion among the rest; and a national establishment would then cease to be the necessity it is now. at all events, should the national provision for the maintenance of religion, which is incidentally a provision, and as things now are very usefully so, for spending a small part of the rent of each parish, often a very small part indeed, in the parish itself, be cancelled, the aspect of things in many places, and the consequences, would be such as to bring many, who are pretty well satisfied with things as they are without thinking why, to join in the cry for free trade in land.

iv. we have been considering three conditions under which the land of the valley may be held; first, that of a thoroughly carried-out system of peasant-proprietorship, which is the natural consummation of things when land is the only means of supporting life, or so nearly the only means that other means disturb its action so little that they need not be considered; and which is the cause of its being divided down to the lowest point at which it is capable of supporting life: we then passed to the opposite extreme, to which the name of landlordism has been given; and we came at last to that which would 67result, and in places has more or less resulted, from the free interaction of land and capital, in this era of capital. we still have to consider how it has been brought about that, in this era of capital, the free interaction of the two, in this country hardly exists at all; what it is that here hinders its existence; and so gives rise to the two abnormal, but closely connected, phenomena, that land is held only in very large aggregations, and that capital is driven away from the proprietorship of land, except in these large aggregations, to seek imaginary investment at home in never-ending bubble schemes, the manufacture of which is as much a trade as that of calico, or sent abroad to be sunk in impossible honduras railways, the shares of non-existent californian mines, and the bonds of hardly more existent states.

this, as it is an unnatural state of things, can have been brought about only by the disturbing action of law. what, then, we have to consider now is, how law has stepped in, and hindered the existence of the state of things which the circumstances of the times demand, and which, therefore, would be their natural and normal condition; and, as it seems, would be fraught with so many and such great advantages to individuals and to the country. the general sense of uneasiness, these questions have given rise to throughout society, indicate that in this matter there is something constitutionally wrong.

68when i was in the united states in 1867-1868, i was frequently asked how the people of england could tolerate a system—the questioner always supposed that such a result could only be brought about by law—that gave the land of the country to a handful of the population? i always replied ‘that it was a natural consequence of our great wealth. a banker, an australian, a contractor, a merchant or manufacturer, a coal or iron owner, made his million of money, and as he could live very well on 25,000l. a-year, he sunk it in land for the sake of the security the land offered, and because, moreover, its possession gave certain social and political advantages. that it was the competition of these millionaires, who were willing to pay for something beyond the productive powers of the land, that kept small purchasers out of the market, and also induced small holders to sell.’ i gave this answer because i wished to avoid a long explanation, involving probably a great deal of argument; and i had not crossed the atlantic to give, but to receive, information.

i knew at the time that my answer was only a partial one; that it omitted some very important elements of the question; and, therefore, was worth very little, except for the purpose in view at the moment.

for instance; it rested on the assumption that the interest of money is now so high in this country that 69under no circumstances—i admit that it is so under existing circumstances—would people hold small amounts of land, say a thousand acres, because they could get a better income by selling the land, and investing the proceeds otherwise; and that none can afford to buy land, except those who can afford to buy so much that the moderate interest of the purchase will still in its amount be sufficient for all their wants. it is acknowledged that at present it is so. the whole question, then, turns on the point of what causes it to be so? is it unavoidable and natural? if so, then it is all right as it is; and the subject is withdrawn from the category of useful discussions.

i, however, for one, am disposed to think that it is neither unavoidable nor natural. there is not such a great difference between the interest of money in france and in england, as to make the great bulk of the people of france desire, above all things, land, and the great bulk of the people of england quite indifferent about it, and even the few who have it in moderate extents desirous of getting rid of it. and, again, in the united states the interest of money is higher than it is here, and yet the ownership of land is regarded as the support, and its cultivation as the natural employment of, i suppose, four-fifths of the whole white population. to us, who look across the atlantic, the cities appear to be america. but this is an optical illusion. the united states are as 70large as the whole of europe, and the cities, though centres of extraordinary activity, are few and far between. its vast occupied area maintains an agricultural population; and its agriculture is carried on upon so grand a scale that, when the eye is directed to it, everything else is utterly lost to view. the towns are nothing in a scene which takes in fifteen hundred miles of farm-houses from new york to omaha, which begin again in the great salt lake valley, and again on the slopes of the sierra-nevada, reaching to the shore of the pacific.

the cause, then, why what does take place in france, and in the united states, does not take place here, must be sought for in something peculiar to ourselves. and our english peculiarity i believe to be this, that here the dominant and regulative fact bearing on the distribution of land is, that it is not distributable; in plain english, that it is not saleable. this is brought about by the law which allows estates to be settled, that is to be taken out of the market and practically to be rendered unsaleable. this being the general fact with respect to land, the millions connected with its cultivation, seeing no opening for their ever becoming possessed of an acre of it, do not save for this purpose, and have their thoughts turned in other directions, that is to say, to the towns, to trade, or to emigration. and the rest of the population, being met by the same obstacle, have their thoughts 71with respect to land, and the investment in it of their capital, equally shaped and coloured by the existence of that obstacle. that which is the dominant fact brings about what is the general feeling and practice. where is the rural district in which, from the general condition of things, it could become a general practice among the population to work, and deny themselves, in order to acquire some property in the land? unsaleability is the general rule, and so this motive, and everything that would be connected with it, and grow out of it, has no existence. the same cause acts even in a higher degree on the rest of the population, because their thoughts are not, from the circumstances and character of their lives, so naturally directed towards the land. it would be just the reverse if every acre, everywhere, were always saleable: of course not always on sale, but always saleable at the will of its owner.

speaking generally, we are in the unique and anomalous position of a nation which has no class of proprietors of small, and moderate-sized estates, cultivating their own land. if circumstances were at all favourable to the maintenance amongst us of such a class, i believe it would be maintained, and would go on increasing. what is the case is, that circumstances adverse to it, and even destructive of it, have been created artificially. by the power of settling estates, large settled estates have everywhere been called into 72existence. thenceforth the fight in each neighbourhood is between large settled estates and small properties. the large settled estates are endowed, practically, with perpetuity, and they have within themselves great powers of purchasing, that is of extension; for their owners are already wealthy, and have, also, the power of discounting, for the purpose of making purchases, the future increase in value of their estates; and they always have a strong motive for making such purchases. the small properties, as things now are, have very little of the element of perpetuity; generally no self-contained power of extension by purchase; and their proprietors have no special motives for attempting to extend them. the absorption, then, of the small properties is inevitable; and has been, indeed, almost entirely effected already. our system creates the large estates, and endows them with the power of swallowing up the small ones; and so year by year takes the land, more and more, out of the market: the general result being that at last we have come to have only a handful of very wealthy rent-receiving proprietors, and few cultivating proprietors; and that the thoughts, the prospects, and the capital of the richest nation in the world are all pretty completely turned away from the land.

we said that our system was not either unavoidable or natural. we ought, therefore, to show how it could have been avoided. we partially did this when 73we pointed out its causes. let us, however, endeavour now to find for ourselves a distinct answer to the question, in what way could its growth and establishment have been prevented? i need not repeat its peculiarities: they have just been referred to. suppose, then, a century ago, the legislature had come to be of opinion that it was contrary to public policy that an existing generation should have its hands tied, in dealing with the land of the country, by the necessities, or the personal and family ambitions, or the ideas, of preceding generations; and that public policy required that the land of the country should pass from hand to hand perfectly free, each successive holder having an absolute interest in it; receiving, and transmitting it, quite unencumbered, precisely in the same way as a sovereign passes from hand to hand. and that, therefore, it had been enacted, with the view of securing these conditions, that land should not be charged in any way; that it should not be encumbered with any uses, or settlements of any kind; and that there should be no power of mortgaging it beyond the life, or tenancy, of the mortgagor. such an enactment, it is obvious, would have rendered the existence of the present system impossible. it would have had this effect, because no one having had the power of encumbering land in favour of his widow and younger children, those whose property was only land, would have 74been obliged to provide for their widows and younger children by bequeathing to them certain portions of the land itself. this would have subdivided the large estates. it, also, would have secured to every owner the power of at any time selling his land, if for any reason he were desirous of so dealing with it. it is, then, presumably, the permission of the very opposite to that which would have prevented the present state of things from existing, that has given it existence.

we have been speaking of what might have been done. let us look at something that has been done. the course of recent legislation upon this subject is very instructive; and, as far as it goes, is confirmatory of what we have been saying as to both the cause, and the remedy, of existing evils. we often hear remarks made upon the mischievous consequences of land being held in mortmain. but the fact is, that in this country there is no such thing as land held in mortmain. the legislature has seen the ill effects of its being so held, and, by a series of acts, all having the same object, has released what was so held. the estates vested in the ecclesiastical commission were made saleable in 1843; the episcopal and capitular estates in 1851; the estates of all other ecclesiastical corporations in 1860; of universities and colleges in 1858. the estates of schools and charities, and of municipal bodies, are now in the same state. by this 75series of enactments the legislature has, i believe, completely abolished the holding of land in mortmain. it could not, we may be sure, have done otherwise. there was among all enlightened people an overwhelmingly preponderant perception of what ought to be done; and it was comparatively easy to deal with that portion of the land of the country to which these enactments apply. the ground they took was not that the corporate estates had a worse body of tenants, or were worse cultivated than settled estates, for that was not the case, but that it was an evil that land should not be saleable; and so some, that was not saleable before, was made saleable.

and now let us see how these acts have worked. there have been instances in which incumbents of parishes have sold their glebes, and colleges some of their estates. but who have been the purchasers of these glebes and college estates? as far as i can hear, in every instance the purchasers have been large landed proprietors. and they did no wrong in buying them. reader, had you and i been in their places we should have done just what they did. the result, however, has been that the large estates have become larger; that is to say, the amount of land that was, through settlements, practically unsaleable, is now greater than it was before; and that through legislation which had for its aim to make land saleable. the present system was so widely established, so powerful, and so 76ready and so able to avail itself of every opportunity, that there was no possibility of its being otherwise. the fate, then, of that portion of the previously mortmain-held land that has been sold, shows how our existing system works; and enables us to see by an instance, which, though not great in amount, is yet distinct and palpable, the tendency in our large settled estates to continue growing, and by so doing to diminish the amount of saleable land in the country. if, instead of being misled by names, we look at facts, the true mortmain-held land of this country is the settled estates.

the corporate lands are, probably, worth somewhere about 30,000,000l. an idea is afloat that there will be a proposal to sell these, and to capitalise the price. but one can hardly suppose that many, except ‘adjacent’ proprietors, will be found to support the scheme, after people have seen what has become of such portions of these lands as have already been sold under the recent acts just referred to; and when they remember that the discharge of certain duties is attached to the revenues of these corporate and endowment estates. and if these duties are not always discharged satisfactorily, that is a matter which better superintendence might set right. at all events, it is better for the public that they should get out of these estates something, than that they should get nothing. if the public desire that it should be so, the legislature, 77we may be sure, will be ready enough to see that all endowments are turned to good account.

we frequently hear the remark, and it is made as if it explained the existence and the character of our present system, that feudalism still flourishes in this country. this is very wide indeed of the mark. there are many, we may be sure, who would be disposed to think that it would be of advantage if something like the division of land of the feudal times still obtained amongst us. the records of the exchequer give the number of knights’ fees at 60,215. let that, however, be as it may, our system is as unlike that of feudalism as anything can be. it belongs in its whole character to the era of capital, but in the form a land-system must assume; and this is its distinguishing feature, when the flow of capital to the land has been so interfered with as practically to prohibit its investment in land, except by very rich people, in very large amounts; that is to say, by people who already have a great deal of land, or who have a great deal of capital. this is an artificial state of things belonging to the era of capital. the natural state of things in the era of capital would be the direct opposite: for that would issue in there being a multitude of owners of estates, purchased and used for all manner of purposes; and to all the land being marketable; and, indeed, to a considerable portion of it, everywhere, being at any time in the market. 78both of these states, the artificial and the natural one, are equally possible in the era of capital. the first is brought about, when, as i have pointed out, the action of the law favours perpetuity, unsaleability, and agglomeration. the latter, when all the land is saleable; and everyone who has capital, no matter whether much or little, is able to buy. there is no feudalism in either of these two states of things. the former is a factitious kind of capitalism.

it may sound paradoxical, after what has been said, to announce that the change suggested in our present system would have the effect of raising the price of land: i am, however, of opinion that it would have this paradoxical effect; because, though it would largely increase the supply, it would in a still greater degree increase the demand for, and the uses of land. it would make all who have capital possible purchasers, and would be an inducement to many, particularly among those whose work is on the land, to save capital in order that they might become purchasers. it would bring into play and activity a great variety of motives for purchasing. for instance; we should then see joint-stock companies buying land which offers no particular advantages for residence, for the single purpose of manufacturing food out of it. they would pour capital into it in such amounts as only proprietors, who were also joint-stock companies, could. they would drain, mix soils, employ steam 79machinery for cultivation, for preparing artificial manures, and for cutting, crushing, and cooking food for cattle; they would build beet-sugar factories, or whatever else would pay when done well, and on a large scale. other districts adapted to small properties, if such there be, we should see falling into the hands of small proprietors. others again, which from their salubrity, or beauty, or local proximity to large towns, were adapted for residential purposes, we should see turned to this account: so that in places where now there may be one, or perhaps not one, resident proprietor, there would be a hundred, or a thousand. in these days of railways and capital all this is natural: and as it is natural it is what would be best for us. i cannot see anything bad in such a state of things; and i think it is what will be brought about eventually. if it had existed during the last fifty years, probably a large portion of the 1,000,000,000l. of capital that have been sent out of the country, would have been kept at home. if there were perfect freedom in dealing with the land, in this rich and populous country, the price of agricultural land would rise to a higher price than it has attained in switzerland, belgium, and parts of france, where it has long been selling for more than it sells for here. if a joint-stock company were to demonstrate that 25l. of capital per acre applied to the cultivation of 1,000 80acres was a profitable speculation, would that have any tendency to lower the value of land?

i believe that some of us will live to see the joint-stock principle introduced into farming, or rather applied to the ownership and cultivation of the land. my reason for believing this is, that it has been found to answer in everything else; and that i can see no other way in which capital, to the amount required in these days, can be applied to the land; and that i can see in the nature of the case no reason why it should not be so applied to the land. i take it for granted that, at this moment, land can be cultivated more productively, and more economically, comparing the amount of produce with the cost of producing it, in farms of about 1,000 acres each, cultivated highly, and by steam machinery, than in any other fashion. if it be so, then the system must force its way to general adoption; and to the looker-on, practically, no question remains uncertain but that of time. if he is satisfied that it is the natural system in the era of capital, he knows that, sooner or later, it must come. one of its pre-requisites, which it will take time to bring about, is, that the land should be owned by those who cultivate it; probably, in each case, by a firm. whether the firm consist of three or four partners, or of three or four dozen shareholders, will make no difference. on no other conditions will the 81costly plant be provided, or the inducement in the way of profits be sufficient.

the past history of agriculture will here help us in our attempt to understand its future. the aboriginal agricultural implement was, as we all know, a burnt stick—a broken branch, with its point hardened in the fire. that was in the stone era, and so the forest could not be felled. only here and there a small plot could be cultivated with such an implement. the rest of the land, that is to say almost the whole of it, was a game preserve for wild animals, deer, wild cattle, wild hogs, &c. after nobody knows how many ages of this style of farming, and of utilising the land, came the discovery of metals. an iron hoe was then regarded as a more wonderful machine than a steam-plough is now. it was beyond the means of any individual, except perhaps here and there a great chief. villages may have clubbed together the few articles they had of exchangeable value, that is to say became a joint-stock company, to secure the possession of one of these marvellous implements. whatever the land had yielded to the tillage of the burnt stick, and through the game preserves, it now yielded a great deal more. the game preserves still continued: but with respect to animal food also there had been a little advance, for domestic animals now began to appear in the village. one advance always draws on others. but the domestic animals were at 82first kept only in small numbers, for they wandered over large expanses of land, almost exclusively forest; the game still remaining the more important of the two. this was the second stage. but as time goes on iron, and the domestic animals, become more abundant; and an ox, or so many ox-hides, can be exchanged for a hoe. it is now possible to get so much more food out of the land, that one man can raise enough for the support of two. this immediately leads to slavery, which always makes its appearance in rude societies as soon as they have reached the point at which one man can produce more food than is sufficient for himself. this advances agriculture some steps further. cattle become abundant; labour is abundant; and a sufficiency of iron is procurable. the forest is, therefore, taken in hand, and fields, that is spaces where the trees have been felled, are formed. and now the plough appears on the scene, and civilised society is fairly under weigh. cultivation continues to extend, and with cultivation pasturage. the forest gradually disappears, and domestic animals entirely take the place of wild game, except for purposes of amusement and luxury. and so on up to the system with which we are all familiar. every discovery advanced matters a step, and made the land more productive. as, for instance, the introduction of artificial grasses and roots, for our ancestors in the autumn used to kill and salt the beef and 83mutton they would require for the winter and spring. then came a better supply of manures, and the two together rendered the abandonment of fallows possible. the land has all along been a constant quantity. it, from the beginning, has been the same. but its produce has from the first been increasing through never-ceasing advances in the means and methods of cultivating it and of turning it to account.

and now another advance is in sight, that of cultivation by steam. this implies a great deal. in each stage there grew out of the nature of things, as they then were, a certain definite proportion between the means used and the amount of land cultivated as one concern. in the burnt stick era the little cultivated plots might have shown in the forest as the stars do in the field of heaven. in the hoe-period they were multiplied and enlarged as the stars appear to us through a telescope. then we had peasant proprietors, and small tenants. the number and size of the luminous, that is, of the cultivated, plots were increasing, as means and appliances increased and improved. and now we suppose that a farm ought properly to be of 400 or 500 acres in extent. this means that the instruments of production and our organisation have advanced very greatly. so must it be with steam cultivation: each concern must be on a large scale. i have supposed that not less than 1,000 acres will be necessary for turning to good account 84the machinery that will be required for tilling the soil, and gathering in the crops, and preparing them for market, for preparing food for the stock, and for making artificial manures, &c. no existing buildings will be of any use. everything will have to be constructed for the purposes required. land, therefore, that has to be cultivated in this way must be regarded as quite unprovided with the necessary plant, as much so as a thousand acres of the prairie of colorado, or of the pampas of la plata. and as nobody will invest all this costly fixed plant on other people’s land, the land must be owned by those who are to cultivate it in this way. but the purchasing, the providing with such plant, and the so cultivating a thousand acres will require not less than 75,000l. this, at present at all events, is quite beyond a farmer’s means. it can, therefore, speaking generally, only be done by firms or companies. if it will pay, they will do it. lord derby tells us the land ought to yield twice as much as it does now. we may, i suppose, set the present gross produce of good average land fairly farmed at 10l. an acre. if land highly cultivated by steam, and with the liberal application of capital we are supposing, would advance its produce to only half of lord derby’s supposed possible increase, the gross yield would be 15l. an acre. and this might give, after allowing one-third for working expenses, deterioration, and insurance, 13⅓l. per cent. on the investment; but 85we will put the working at half, which will leave a profit of 10 per cent. if this could be done, then the streams of english capital that are perennially flowing off into all countries would be profitably diverted to the cultivation and enrichment of our own land; and no small portion of the other millions we are year by year paying the foreigner for food, might be paid to food-manufacturers of our own, and so saved to the country.

france produces at home its own sugar; and, besides, sends to us 60,000 tons a-year. we do not manufacture sugar at home, because an english tenant would not spend 8,000l., if he had it, in erecting a sugar factory on another man’s land; but such firms of proprietors could, and probably would, on their own.

capital swept away the peasant proprietor. it has almost swept away the 50-acre tenant. and it will sweep away the 250-acre tenant. but it offers to all better careers than those it closes against them. the system it is bringing upon us will employ more hands, and will require them all to be better men, and will pay them all better, both for their work and for their capital. under it there will be openings everywhere for everyone to become what he is fit to become. this will be a premium on education; and it will do more to suppress drunkenness in the rural districts than any conceivable licensing, or permissive, or prohibitory acts.

86i do not know what, under such a state of things, will become of our old friend, who was also the friend of our forefathers—the agricultural pauper. on a farm of a thousand acres, carried on in the fashion we have been supposing, there would be no place for him. upon its area there would not be a man who was not wanted. and all who were wanted would be well paid and well housed. there would be engine-men, and stock tenders, and horsemen, and labourers, more in number perhaps than the hands now employed on the same space, but all would be better off, and would be better men. in order, however, that this may be brought about, capital must be allowed free access to the land, that is to say, the land must be set free.

the argument from the picturesque will not arrest the course of events. never was the country so picturesque as when there was no cultivation at all, and the noble savage pursued his wild game through the primæval forest over hill and dale. the little hoed plots of a succeeding epoch were a great encroachment on the picturesque. the fields that came in with the plough carried the disfigurement still further. our hedges and copses, under the existing system, are rapidly disappearing. but the human interest in the scene has always been increasing: and it will culminate when the steam-engine shall have brought in a system under which those who do the 87very lowest forms of labour then required will be better fed, and housed, and clothed, and paid, because it will be a system that will not admit of bad work, than was possible under previous systems, which did not depend for their success on the intelligence of the labourer, and the accuracy and excellence of his work.

such a system would carry out to their logical and ultimate consummation the free interaction of capital and agricultural land. all such land, the implements, and whole plant employed in its cultivation, and even the labour, skill, and intelligence of its cultivators, would be represented by dividend-receiving, 10l., 5l., or 1l. share certificates, transferable merely by the double endorsement of the seller and of the buyer. the old certificate, thus endorsed, would be presented to the manager, if necessary by post; and a new certificate would be issued to the new holder. these certificates would circulate almost as freely as money; but as it would be a kind of money that would carry a dividend at the rate of capital employed in safe ventures, say four-and-a-half or five per cent., with a prospect of improvement, wherein it would differ from the low interest of exchequer bills, the holding of such certificates would be the most attractive kind of savings’ bank to the poor, and to all. the great difficulty in the way of saving in the case of the poor, and of all who are unacquainted with business, is to 88find suitable, and safe, investments. that difficulty would be removed; and they would be enabled to participate, according to their means, as easily, and on the same footing, as the richest and the best informed, in the wealth and property of the country. any labourer on any joint-stock farm, or elsewhere, any artisan, any servant girl, any poor governess, who might save a few pounds, might invest them in a share or two; and the increment, whether earned or unearned, in the value of land, and of its produce, would go to them proportionally with the wealthiest. everyone would, in this way, have opened to him an avenue for participating, to any amount possible to him, in the possession of the land everywhere. a large proportion of the population would thus become interested in the development of its resources, and so in the prosperity of the country, and in the order and stability of society. the land would, in a sense, become mobilised; and the possession of it rendered capable of universal diffusion. any one of the present owners, who might come to wish that any portion of his land might be held, and used, in this fashion, might receive, if he chose to be so paid, as many shares in each concern formed out of it, as would equal the value of land he might make over to it.

if the possibility of such a system could be demonstrated, the existing owners of land might be the first to wish to see it carried out. the following 89figures will show why. suppose a thousand acres of agricultural land is letting at what is about the average rent of such land, that is at about 30s. an acre, the landlord will be receiving for it 1,500l. a-year, subject to some not inconsiderable deductions. but if this same land were sold to a cultivating firm at 50l. an acre, the price being received in shares, and the concern were to pay to original shareholders 10 per cent. the rent of 1,500l., subject to deductions, would have become a dividend of 5,000l. subject to no deductions. but we will suppose only 3,000l., for that will be double the present rent, and so quite sufficient for our argument.

so far as the system might be adopted would ownership of the land of the old kind cease, and in its place be substituted, in convenient amounts, dividend-receiving, easily transferable, and freely circulating capital stock certificates, within everybody’s reach, secured upon definite portions of the agricultural land of the country, representing its present value, and participating in its future advances in value. such certificates would, also, offer an improving security for trust funds of all kinds, and for endowments.

the combination of what i have observed, during a life in the country, of the requirements of land, and of the condition and wants of the poor, with my experience of the duties of a trustee (which have devolved 90upon me to, perhaps, an unusually great extent), suggested to me the ideas i have just been endeavouring to present to the reader. if they are practicable they may contribute to the solution of existing difficulties of several kinds. i am aware that they cannot do this, because in that case they would be quite visionary, if they are not in harmony with the natural requirements and conditions of the era of capital. that they would have been impracticable in other times does not prove that they would be impracticable now.

but we have been enticed off the main line of our discussion to a by-path, which was offering a very interesting view into the future. we must now return to the point we had before reached, which was that of the popular misconceptions that are held with respect to our existing system. there are, then, again, others who suppose that its salient peculiarities may be explained by a reference to what is frequently spoken of as ‘the law of primogeniture.’ we have, however, in this country no law of primogeniture in any sense that can be intended in such a reference. there is no body of rights attaching by law to the eldest son. the extent of what may be regarded as law in this matter is the right of the eldest son of a peer to succeed to his father’s peerage; and of the eldest sons of those who have hereditary titles to succeed to their father’s titles. the power of entailing landed property 91only acts in favour of the system of primogeniture, because the holders of landed property themselves choose to work it in this direction; for it might be used equally in favour of equal partition. there is then no law of primogeniture in the sense supposed. a man who buys land, or in any way comes to have the absolute disposal of it, as the word absolute implies, may dispose of it as he pleases. he may, if such should be his wish, leave it all to his youngest child, or in equal partition amongst all his children. only, should he die intestate, the law will deal with his land (but we have just been told that this is to be altered) in the way in which, looking at the conduct in this matter of english landlords generally, it may be supposed the man himself would have dealt with it had he made a will. possibly he may not have made a will because he knew that the law would so dispose of it. the law in the few exceptional cases of this kind that arise from time to time, recognises, and acts on, the state of opinion and sentiment which has grown out of the power, it had itself given, of charging and encumbering land—a power which probably had no very glaring economical evils and inconveniences in an age when the population of the country was only a third of what it is at present, and when capital was only in an embryonic condition, and when, too, perhaps the political system this power upheld appeared to be necessary.

92it is not, then, any law of primogeniture which has brought about our present land-system, but certain powers, conferred by law, which have suggested to people the desirability of acting on, and enabled them to act on, the voluntarily adopted principle of primogeniture; that is to say the power of charging and encumbering their estates. and, now that the era of capital is upon us, it is not improbable that the policy of continuing this power will be debated, for at such a time it has some very obvious evils and inconveniences. i do not mean that it will be reconsidered by the legislature before many years have elapsed, or in the first instance; for in a matter of this kind the legislature can do nothing but give form and sanction to what the circumstances of the times have already settled. if it shall be generally felt that the ill consequences of the exercise of this power overbalance its advantages, we may suppose that it will be withdrawn. this is not a question that will be much affected by any amount of speaking or writing, if that be all. if the facts of the matter are of themselves not felt as evils and inconveniences, no amount of speaking or of writing will bring people so to regard them. but should they come to be so felt, the people of this country will be desirous of dealing with them as all men, always and everywhere, have dealt with such matters, when they were seen to admit of removal. but however that may 93be, it is not a law of primogeniture, but certain law-conferred powers, enabling people to act on the principle of primogeniture, which are the cause of the existing state of things in this matter.

in the discussion of this subject, which ramifies in many directions, for it has moral and social, as well as economical, political, and constitutional bearings, many questions will be propounded, and will have to be considered: such, for instance, as whether, in these several respects, a comparatively small number of large landowners is better, in this era of capital, and of large cities, than a large number of landowners, holding estates varying in dimensions, according to the amounts of capital people would, from a variety of motives, be desirous of investing in land, were all the land of the country free and marketable; or, in other words, whether, in such times, the artificial condition of things we have been considering is safer than, and preferable to, the natural condition? the share-certificates, i just now spoke about, would make it free and marketable to the greatest imaginable degree.

it will also be asked whether it is fair to the land-owner, and, all things considered, advantageous to the community, that he should be obliged to provide for his widow and younger children either by saving the means for making such provision from his income, or by leaving to them, absolutely, what portions 94of his landed property he may think fit? those same share-certificates would supply an easy, inexpensive, and safe method of providing for widows and younger children.

another question will be whether in this era of capital, which means that there will always be some large capitalists as well as many small ones, the liberation of the land would really lead to the extinction of large estates? largeness is a word of comparative signification. of course there would be few such large estates as there are now, because that is the result of growth through many generations under the very peculiar circumstances we have been referring to: but if the interchange of land and capital were perfectly free there would be everywhere many considerable estates, though the general order of things might be estates of moderate size, descending to holdings of small extent, which might be the most numerous of all; or such holdings might not be very numerous: for in matters of this kind there is always much that is unforeseen. one point, however, may, i think, be held to be certain: we shall never, in this country, see anything approximating to peasant proprietorship. that is simply inconceivable in the era of capital. both the land and the man can be turned, now, to better account. its advocates are either ignorant demagogues, or members of that harmless class who, having their eyes in the back of 95their heads, can only see, and wish for, what has passed away. if we ever come to have share-estates, such as i have endeavoured to describe, they will, probably, average, as i said, about 1,000 acres each.

it will, perhaps, also, be suggested that there may be some mixed method of proceeding, which, while respecting existing arrangements, would, at the same time, largely increase the number of proprietors; as, for instance, to deal with the rents of endowments compulsorily, and with those of the owners of land at their option, just as the tithe was dealt with; that is to say, to convert the rent into a permanent charge upon the land; and then to sell the land, subject to this rent-charge, the yearly value of which would be ascertained, as is done in the case of the tithe commutation rent-charge, by reference to certain averages of the price of the different kinds of grain cultivated in this country. the immediate gain to corporations, and trustees, and to proprietors who might be disposed to sell, would be considerable, for they would continue to get their present rents, without deductions, and would, besides, be able to sell the proprietary right in the land, and its capacity for future increase in value, for whatever they would fetch in the market. this would suit the share-system, for the land might then be bought with or without the rent, as it might happen in each case.

our opinions on any question are very much influenced 96by our observation of the direction things are taking. now, with respect to our existing land-system, all changes in matters connected with, or bearing upon, it, and which appear to be either imminent, or possible, are likely to take only the direction of what will be unfavourable to its maintenance. for instance, if it be decided that endowments, now consisting of land, should be capitalised, in order that more land may be brought into the market, the line of argument, that triumphed against them, will be equally available against our existing land-system. and, furthermore, if the lands belonging to charities, institutions, and corporations be sold, it is evident that, as things now are, they will, for the most part, be bought up by the owners of large contiguous estates; so that, in fact, the remedy attempted will only make the evil it was intended to remedy, more glaring: the great estates will have become greater. the fate of the corporate estates, thus compulsorily sold, will be that of the thousands of small properties the large estates have of late years swallowed up. everybody knows that many houses of the gentry of former times are now farm-houses on every large estate. it cannot be otherwise, for this is how a large estate is formed. all the smaller estates in the neighbourhood, just like the meteoric bodies which come at last to be overpowered by the attraction of our planet, must, as things are now, gravitate towards it: their 97end is, sooner or later, generally the former, to fall into it. so, if the estates of the endowments are sold, will it be with them. it has been so with those that have been already sold.

again, if the church be disestablished and disendowed, a certain proportion of the rent of each parish in the country, pretty generally more or less increased by private income, will cease to be spent within the parish. what is so spent at present, as far as it goes, and to a great extent in many cases, lessens the hard and repellent features of the absenteeism of the owners of the land in those parishes. disendowment, therefore, will make the evils and inconveniences of the present system, whatever they may be, more felt, and more conspicuous; and a better mark, as they will then stand clear of all shelter, for adverse comment.

so, too, if the agricultural land of this country should continue, and there is no reason for supposing the contrary, to fall, year by year, into fewer hands, the strength of those who will have to defend the system will be diminishing at the very time that wealth, intelligence, numbers, union, and every element of power, are increasing on the side of those who cannot see that they have any interest in maintaining it.

if the recent education act have the intended effect of educating the millions who have no landed property, the most coveted of all human possessions, will they find anything in the existing system that 98will commend it to their favour? will they not rather be in favour of a system, which would make every acre of land in the country marketable?

if people should come to think that the reason why france, notwithstanding the abject condition of a large proportion of its peasant-proprietors, and without our stupendous prosperity in manufactures and commerce, has become so rich, is that it keeps its savings at home, because the land of the country is marketable, while we, every year, scatter tens of millions of pounds of our savings all over the earth to be utterly lost, because they cannot be invested at home in the land of the country, the natural reservoir, or savings’ bank, of the surplus capital of a country, as well as the best field for its employment, will they not go on to wish that the land here, too, could be made marketable?

if population and capital go on increasing, may we not anticipate that this will engender a desire—for in these days of railways and telegraphs it is much the same where a man lives—that the agricultural land of the country should be brought into the state of divisibility and marketableness, into which some of the land in the neighbourhood of our great cities has been brought through the pressure of circumstances? this pressure may extend, and be felt with respect to the land of the whole country.

in an era, too, when popular principles so thoroughly pervade society as to influence all our legislation, is it probable that a system which is the reverse of 99popular will commend itself to general acceptance? it is also on the cards now that manual labour may become so costly as to necessitate, if a great deal of land is not to go out of cultivation, the substitution of machinery to such an extent as will be done, generally, only by those who own the land.

the whole stream of tendency, then, both in what is now occurring, and in what is likely to occur in no remote future, seems setting strongly in a direction which cannot be regarded as favourable to the maintenance of our present land-system. and the observation of this will, sooner or later, consciously or unconsciously, very much modify opinion on the subject; for in human affairs, just as with respect to the operations of nature, we are disposed to acquiesce in what we have come to understand is inevitable.

but we have for some time lost sight of the valley of the visp, though not of its imaginary sole proprietor. he has all along been before us. what we have been considering was how, in this era of capital, he came to be its sole proprietor, what are the action and effects of those artificial conditions which placed him in this position, and what are the chances of the maintenance of these artificial conditions.

things move fast in these days: but few people expect that any change will take place in his time. he will continue in the position of social eminence, and of political power, he now occupies. he will 100go on hoping to leave after him a line of descendants occupying the same, or even a greater, position. this will be the dominant motive in his mind. if any land is to be bought in his neighbourhood, there will still be a likelihood that he will become the purchaser of it. it has always been so, since the estate became the predominant one in those parts. and that it should be so is now regarded almost as a law of nature; as something quite inevitable; so that no one need enquire whether it is beneficent in its action, or otherwise. if he have not cash in hand to pay for the new purchase, he will mortgage his property to the amount of the price. in this era of capital the value of land goes on increasing, and so the mortgage will in time be paid off by the estate itself. in this way, in these times, every large estate has within itself, even without austrian marriages,[1] a progress-generated power of absorption and growth. without lessening the area of the estate, he will provide for those who are dependent on him by charging it with the payment of whatever he may please to leave them: so that while no very apparent injustice will be done to them, the position of the single representative of the family will not be affected, for he will still appear before the world as the owner of the whole estate. he will also hope that, from time to time, the representatives of the family will, by making purchases 101in the way in which he has, and by the introduction of great heiresses into the family, increase the extent of the estate.

1. bella gerant alii. tu felix austria nube: nam, quæ mars aliis, dat tibi regna venus.

at times, when he hears how demagogues are raving about the nationalisation of the land, and the tyranny of capital; and when he visits the valley, and sees the condition of many, indeed of all the people on the estate, he may feel that he is in a somewhat invidious position. but he will feel also that no one is to blame: his progenitors could not well have acted otherwise than as they did; nor could he well act otherwise than as he is acting, and will act. and those who are discussing the matter, sometimes with the tone of men who are suffering a wrong, would, we may be sure, not act otherwise, under the circumstances, themselves.

suppose, however, that for the restricted and artificial action of capital, which has brought this state of things about, its natural action has been substituted: what will be the effect on the hopes, and on the family, of the proprietor of our valley? we may venture to predict that the natural order of things will give him a securer chance of realising his hopes in their best sense. his family will start, in the race of life, in possession of the whole of the land of the valley. for them this will be no bad start. the land of the valley will bear division for several generations without reducing the members of the family to a bad position, even if none of them should do anything at 102all to improve their position. but this, judging by the ordinary principles of human nature, we may be sure, speaking generally, will not be the case. two centuries hence, it will be their own fault, if, instead of the family being really only one man, they have not become a clan in the valley: a clan possessed of more social importance, and of more political influence, than could attach to a family represented by a single member. some will have become invigorated by the inducements to exertion that will have come home to them, and by the wholesome consciousness in each that he is somewhat dependent on himself for maintaining and improving his position. whatever efforts to advance themselves they may come to make, will not be made under unfavourable circumstances. none of them will have occasion to feel, as perhaps some of their ancestors at times had, that they are in an invidious position; and none will regard them with feelings that, if not ‘somewhat leavened with a sense of injustice,’ do yet arise from a suspicion that things are not quite as they ought to be, through there having been some kind of interference with their natural course. is not this a nobler, a more patriotic, a more human, and in every way a better prospect than that which is now feeding the somewhat misdirected paternal ambition of the present proprietor? would it not be a better anticipation of the fortunes of his family, to think of them 103as a numerous body of proprietors, occupying a good position, through the natural action of the circumstances and conditions of the times, than to look forward to the uncertain character and uncertain position of a single member of his family, who will be maintained, if maintained, by conditions, on the permanency of which no dependence can be placed, because they are at discord with the needs and circumstances of the times?

land now no longer rules. capital is king. capital it is that does everything now; that even, but under abnormal and artificial conditions, aggregates our large estates. under this dynasty the advantages the land is capable of conferring on man are not withdrawn, but much increased both in degree and in variety; and everything desirable, the land not excepted, becomes, in a manner and degree inconceivable in all foregone times, the reward of personal exertion and worth. this is what distinguishes this dynasty from those that have preceded it. if it be the true king, it will prove its legitimacy, by removing all artificial barriers to the development and exercise of its beneficent powers. if it cannot do this, it is a bastard dynasty, and will be dethroned.

v. but i have not yet exhausted all the possible forms in which land may be held. their name is legion. every country, and every condition of society, 104has had, has now, and will have, its own. i say nothing of the serf-system: that among civilised nations has gone for ever. so has the system of village communities. the co-operative system, however, has believers, and, it appears possible, may have a trial. but i, for one, because i believe in capital, and in the individual, have no belief in this kind of co-operation, as a general system, either in manufactures and commerce, or, and that least of all, in agriculture: and, with respect to the latter, whether the co-operators be renters, or owners. ownership would make no difference at all beyond the power owners would possess of mortgaging their land; and this, as it is a resource that would very soon be exhausted, need not be considered here. the only practical difference would be, that co-operative renters would require a larger extent of land to live from than co-operative owners, whose land was unmortgaged. if the system of co-operation were general, competition, and the increase of population that would have to be provided for, and which would lead either to subdivision, or to an increase of co-operators upon each farm, would inevitably bring the style of living down to a point at which it would be no better than it is now in the visp valley. and this is so low a condition of life, both materially and intellectually, that most people are of opinion that it is not worth while to go in for its maintenance, or even, perhaps, to regret its disappearance.

105a population of co-operators sunk to this depth, and they could not but sink to it, would, like the old irish potatovors, or the french petty proprietors, be in a state of chronic wretchedness and degradation: this, in bad seasons, amounts to a state of starvation. if the individual irish potatovor could not, and the individual french petty proprietor, in whom the parsimonious disposition of his race is exaggerated, rarely can, save, because bad seasons oblige him to mortgage his little plot of land, from which he can hardly extract a living in good seasons, we may be sure that neither would, nor could, such co-operators. i am disposed to prefer the present condition of our agricultural labourers, the most feeble class amongst us. at all events, they have more than one buffer between themselves and bad seasons. first there is the reservoir of capital possessed by the farmer. this is, to the extent of wages, generally, sufficient. in consequence of its existence bad seasons make little or no difference to hired labourers. but under the co-operative system there would be no farmers, but only co-operators, just able to get along in ordinary seasons. our labourers have, also, a second buffer, which is often of some use to them, in their wealthy neighbours. but under the co-operative system there would probably be no wealthy neighbours. they possess, too, a third buffer in the state, which comes in, in the last resort, to rescue them from the extreme consequences 106of every kind of calamity. but under a system of peasant co-operators there could hardly be anything resembling our poor-law; for the rationale of that is, that the people who cultivate the soil of the country, are themselves devoid of all property. these three buffers, then, would all have disappeared; and nothing, as far as we can see, would arise, or could be created, to take their place. such co-operators would be only co-operative peasant-proprietors: which is an absurdity.

another sufficient objection to this system is, that this is the era of capital, and that such a system would most effectually prohibit the outflow of capital to the land. capital could no more be invested in the ownings of a wretched population of co-operators, than it could be in the plots of irish potatovors, or of french petty proprietors.

the conclusion, then, to which my moralising on the spectacle of the valley of the visp brought me was, that it belongs to a state of things, which, even in such secluded retreats, will not be able to linger on much longer: at all events, that it is not desirable that it should. we live under the dominion of capital, that is to say, of property other than land, or rather, perhaps, of an accumulated, and still accumulating, interest or dividend-bearing essence of all property (which is labour stored up in some material), 107reconvertible at will, for productive purposes, into land, labour, or anything men have of exchangeable value. this mighty essence of all property is within the reach of us all, in proportion to our respective opportunities and abilities, and the efforts to gain possession of it we choose to make. but though within the reach of all, it is the mightiest of all magicians; and it is evident that it must modify both the possession, the distribution, and the use of land, as well as everything else with which we have to do. in this there is nothing to be regretted. on the contrary, we ought all of us to congratulate ourselves on the advent of such an era: for it means that our resources for living, and for living well, in respect of all the requirements of human happiness, have been thereby vastly enlarged, and with a power of indefinite enlargement, irrespective of the area of the country. it means, too, that careers have been thereby opened to all, in ways which would have been inconceivable when land supplied the only resource for living; for that now every moral and intellectual endowment, every form of labour, and every aptitude can be turned to account. even land can be made productive of greater benefits to us than we were wont to derive from it, for capital is showing that it has economical, and other, capacities for improving man’s estate, undreamt of by its old cultivators.

popular language, which is the expression of 108popular ideas, on this subject is adequate. it gives correctly the philosophy of the matter. what is wanted is that it should be clearly and generally understood, and used with accuracy. money has both an intrinsic value as the representative of so much labour expended in the acquisition of the precious metals, and a conventional use as a metallic certificate, entitling its holder to exchange it against anything else in the world anyone has to part with, that costs in its production an equal amount of labour, there being at the time no abnormal disturbance of the ratio of supply and demand. in the latter respect it matters not whether the certificate is on gold or paper: for the paper represents gold, or equal value. when earned, or otherwise acquired, by a kitchen-maid, a speculator, or a prime-minister, it may be used in any one of three ways. first, it may be spent. secondly, it may be hoarded. thirdly, it may be used as capital. by spending is meant using money for the acquisition of what perishes in the use; when it passes into another man’s hands who again has the option of using it in any one of the three ways. it is evident that a man may spend money for clothing, food, and other necessary purposes, in order to live, and to enable him to do his work in life well, whatever it may be: it is then spent well, and in a sense productively. or he may spend it on vice, or ostentation, or hurtful pleasures: it is 109then spent ill. by hoarding is meant putting it away unproductively for future use. this was originally the only alternative to spending. the money stored away in the treasuries of the old pharaohs was an instance of this unproductive suspension of use. this is still the practice, everywhere, among rude and ignorant people: it is the hibernation of money; its active uses are put in abeyance. as capital it may be used in two ways. it may either be invested, or employed. investing it means placing it in securities that do not require management, as, for instance, consols, mortgages, the rent of land, &c.; the correlative of which is interest. employing it means placing it in reproductive industries, as, for instance, in agriculture, manufactures, trade, commerce, &c., which require management, and the correlative of which is profit. this when divided among shareholders, who manage the concern jointly, or by a selection from their body, becomes dividend. this is the highest form of economical organisation. it gives to all, in their respective proportions, however small those proportions may be, the power of employing capital; and to all who have the ability and integrity, the chance of rising to its management. it is the full development of the era of capital. it is the stage we have now reached. it enables the kitchen-maid, and everybody, to participate in the highest advantages of capital. i think we shall see it 110employed in this way in the cultivation and proprietorship of the land. if so, then, i think the poor and ignorant will have brought home to them a very strong motive for saving, because they will have constantly before their eyes a safe and profitable means of employing their savings. they, too, may thus become capitalists of the best kind.

two pregnant errors, however, there appear to be, which it will be necessary for us to avoid, especially, in order that, as respects the land, we may secure the natural conditions and natural advantages of our era of capital. one is the error of making people’s wills for them directly, in the way done in france. this breaks up the land of a country into properties smaller than they would become under the natural circumstances of the times: thus condemning, through legislation, a large part of the population, deluded by the fallacious disguise of proprietorship, to life-long misery. the other error is that of making people’s wills for them indirectly, in the way done in some other countries. this has the opposite effect of agglomerating the land of the country into estates larger than they would become under the natural circumstances of the times, and of reducing the number of proprietors of agricultural land almost to the vanishing point. the first method both increases the number of wretched, degraded, and almost useless proprietors, and diminishes the size of the properties, to a highly mischievous degree. the latter 111just in proportion as it increases the size of the estates diminishes the number of proprietors. both limit the variety of uses to which the land may be put. both introduce causes of political action at variance with the natural conditions of the times. every system has some advantages: but whatever may be the advantages of the latter, it is, at all events, an interference with the natural rights of each generation, and with the natural course of things; for it prevents the ownership, and the uses, of the land of the country adjusting themselves to the circumstances and the requirements of the times; and hinders the application, to its culture, of that combination of knowledge, energy, and capital, which is manifestly within reach, and has become requisite for developing its productiveness to the degree acknowledged to be possible now, but which cannot be secured under our present landlord-and-tenant system. if, however, this be a serious evil, it is, for reasons already given, one of that class of evils which engender their own remedy.

many are of opinion that landlordism was all along at the bottom of the evils of ireland. landlordism is probably the cause of the liberalism of scotch constituencies. if so, what is there to prevent the same cause having, eventually, somewhat similar effects in england? and, if so, then, what next? if, however, the law, instead of interfering with the natural course of things, by indirectly making people’s 112wills for them, would take care that the land of the country should pass from generation to generation, and from hand to hand, free from every kind of encumbrance, and so be all, at all times, at the will of the holder, marketable, a question, which is now causing much anxiety, because it may, before long, give much trouble, would probably die away, and be no more heard of; nor, probably, should we hear any more of the antagonisms, with which we are all now so familiar, between the town and the country. one step, at least, would have been taken towards making us one people.

the stimulus new scenes apply to the mind, more particularly when its owner is passing through them on foot, and alone, accounts for the foregoing chapter. but its having been thought out under such circumstances by a is no reason for its being read by b, who is neither on foot, nor, probably, alone; and the only scene before whom is, doubtless, the not unfamiliar one of his own fireside; one which, perhaps, has never invited, and may, too, be quite unfitted for, either the debate, or the rumination, of such discussions. still, as it was suggested by, and constructed in the mind during, the tramp i am recording, and was so one of its incidents, i set it down here in its place.