TRANSLATOR'S APPENDIX. No. I. FRENCH LAW OF SUCCESSION VINDICATED IN THE CHAMBER THE DUKE DE BROGLIE (Prime Minister since 1830, late Ambassador in England, and an extensive landed proprietor,) opposed the law, which he viewed with alarm, and as an act of temerity bordering on madness : To make laws to keep the rich rich and the poor poor is but a work of supererogation, and is carrying aid to the quarter where it is least wanted; whereas, in my opinion, a legislator ought to do the very reverse. The Great Frederick used to say, "Take care of the small coins, and leave the louis-d'ors to take care of themselves;" a wise maxim, which may be turned to account in the present discussion. In spite of the proscriptions and the revolution, two-thirds of the land now belongs to the ancient nobility and the ancient middle class in the towns. The reporter of the law has said, that in giving little to the younger sons, and much to the eldest son of a family, the former will be rendered active, intelligent, and industrious. The celebrated Dr. Johnson once observed, "The law of primogeniture has this to be said in its favour, that it only makes one fool in a family." The only plausible argument in favour of the proposed law is derived from the breaking down of the soil into too minute portions. The Minister of Finance believes that this subdivision, after having operated beneficially, will become pernicious; and he added, that were he possessed of documents, showing the exact state of property in France at the present time, he would take care not to produce them, for the honour of his country, but would bury them in the bowels of the earth! It is possible that small farms may be less productive and profitable than great, because the one require more labour relative to their size than the other. But what connexion is there betwixt great farms and great estates? The one are the result of the abundance of capital, the other of a material and unproductive concentration, frequently accompanied with sterility. England and Ireland are two countries under the same government: the same civil laws have ruled both for several centuries: in both, entails and primogeniture have existed, and estates are as great in Ireland as in England. These facts are indisputable. Much has been said of the statute of the 2d of Queen Anne, which subjected the successions of the Catholics to the custom of gavelkind, or the rule of an equal division. But what did it produce? In force for two generations at the most, it has been repudiated by Catholic families, because it was looked upon as an instrument of persecution; and twenty cases in which it was applied are not to be found. If the Catholic population in Ireland is to the Protestant as six to one, property is to the Catholics as one to six. In England, the thriving condition of large farms is owing to the abundance of capital, and the goodness of the government. In Ireland, great estates are let for long definite periods; either for a fixed number of years, varying from twentyone to ninety-nine; or, what is more common, on leases depending on one, two, or three lives. The latter species of lease is in law called Freehold, giving a right of absolute property, limited as to time. When the farmer dies before the expiration of the lease, without leaving a will, the farm devolves on his eldest son, to the exclusion of the rest of the family. You thus see that the law of primogeniture reaches far, since it affects not merely the owner of the land, but also its temporary occupant, the farmer. What does the latter do? As he has neither the intelligence nor the capital requisite for carrying on a large farm, he divides it into small lots, and sublets it to petty tenants, who, in their turn, often subdivide and sublet their possessions into still smaller portions, so that betwixt the landlord and the original tenant there are often found four or five grades of tenantry. The real occupant is the poor Irish peasant, who dwells in the same hut with his cow, feeds on potatoes and a little milk, and who works day and night with his own hands on his small patch of land. The difference betwixt France and England lies in this, that in France the agricultural classes are proprietors; and, the principle of property acting as a stimulus, if they are, on the one hand, generally deficient in theoretic information, they are, on the other, exceedingly provident and inventive: if they are wanting in capital, they are extremely active, economical, and laborious; whilst in Ireland, on the contrary, where the same classes possess no capital but their hands, and hold their small lots of land at the discretion of a middle-man, interposed betwixt them and the landlord, not only are they ill informed, but they are devoid of industry,-they are not only poor, but indolent and improvident. Would the proposed law have the effect of creating capital to be applied to agriculture? No. I am not aware that such a virtue has been ascribed to it. Would it have the effect of extending and propagating the knowledge of improved modes of cultivation? It would as little do this; nor has it any such pretensions. If, therefore, it were to operate, (as God forbid that it should !) so as to create, by force and artificially, great properties, what would then happen? It would simply dispossess the present agricultural class. It would substitute for a great number of small proprietors, active, intelligent, and laborious, a small number of great ones, who would dissipate in Paris the rents of their large ill-cultivated estates, and a class of greedy farmers, who, destitute alike of information, and of that clear-sighted zeal inspired by property, would become indolent, rude, and miserable. By this law we should make France of the present day what it was formerly-we should not assimilate it to England, but to Ireland. In regard to agriculture, as to a great many other things, we live in a period of transition. Before the Revolution, France, generally speaking, was a country of great estates, very ill cultivated. The events of that memorable revolution-the sale of the church lands, of those of the emigrants, and the communes-have dispersed the soil among thousands, or, we may rather say, millions of persons: with property the desire of acquiring it is diffused amongst the lower orders, and has increased tenfold the natural power of those events, and of the laws of succession. At the present time every peasant aims at becoming an owner of land, and when he has purchased a portion of it he longs to increase his boundaries. Hitherto, this passion for property has worked admirably; still, the best things are capable of being abused; and at the present time I am inclined to think that this universal proprietory tendency is a sort of mania,-that the peasantry buy up at too dear rates the parcels of land that suit them, and that they might often make a more profitable use of their small capitals. It is this competition that causes estates to sell higher in lots than entire. But this evil is of such a kind that it will work its own cure. No system can be of long continuance after its vices have become apparent, and when it is found to act in a manner inverse of what was expected. A legislator, moreover, would have enough to do were he to interpose so as to prevent all bad bargains, and to redress the various evils resulting from the false calculations of individuals. What have we to desire at present? That this movement towards division, which has hitherto operated so beneficially, should be arrested at the point where it becomes mischievous; that the action, which always, more or less, goes beyond the mark, (owing to the infirmity of our nature,) should be succeeded by a reaction of a no less salutary kind; that a change should be brought about naturally and spontaneously in the future; that in places where the soil is favourable, great estates should be let out in large farms, in such circumstances as to prevent the latter from becoming evils. But how can this new movement be generated and set in operation? There are only three means of creating great properties, namely, conquest, confiscation, and the accumulation of capital. Lands can only be taken from their present owners by violence or voluntary purchase. Conquest, I hope, will never be dreamed of. Confiscations were abolished by the charter, and no one thinks of re-establishing them. There thus only remains the accumulation of capital. But the accumulation of capital is the work of manufacturing industry and of commerce; it is, therefore, towards these that our attention ought to be turned. There is a natural tendency on the part of great fortunes realised in manufactures and trade to seek an investment in land this tendency, I repeat, is natural, for land has social and political advantages attached to it which moveable wealth does not possess. When a man, who has become rich by his talents or labour, becomes by choice a proprietor of land, he is naturally inclined, in the management of his newly-acquired estate, to adopt or create superior modes of cultivation. He is in a situation to do this, for, industrious and well-informed, he either knows the best modes of farming beforehand, or he soon acquires them, and puts them in practice. With an ample capital at his command, he is able to make the needful advances, and to wait for years until they yield the expected returns. A great property thus formed in a favourable district-large farms laid out with the view of promoting the best modes of culture-present chances of success which the accidents of succession can rarely accomplish. The Minister of Finance, indeed, asserts that great estates can never be recomposed in this way; that the idea is chimerical; that it would be necessary to buy up acre after acre; and that these purchases, in detail, could only be made at exorbitant prices. But, first of all, this view of the matter presupposes that cultivators will, in opposition to their own interest, persist in their competition for small lots of land; and we have shown that this error can only have a temporary endurance. On the other |