rated to the land-tax exhibited an increase of more than 600,000; being about six per cent. in ten years. Let us first remark, that 600,000 separate assessments are equivalent only to about 300,000 proprietors; it being the common estimate of French writers, that on the average about two côtes foncières, or separate accounts with the land-tax, correspond only to a single proprietor. But if the reviewer had consulted his author just ten pages further on, he would have found a cause sufficient to account for a considerable portion of this increase. There were sold between 1826 and 1835 domains of the state, to the value of nearly 134 millions of francs, or five and a half millions sterling. The very nature of such a sale implies division. And we are the more inclined to ascribe much of the apparent increase of division to this circumstance, because in the ten years preceding those in question, the côtes foncières increased in number by little more than 200,000; an alarming proof, according to the reviewer, of the progressive advance of the evil; but, as we suspect, arising partly from the fact, that during the earlier decennial period a smaller, though still a considerable, amount of public domains were alienated.

In addition to the state lands, a great extent of communal lands were likewise alienated during the same period and it is further necessary to subtract all the additions made to the number of côtes foncières by the extension of building, and by the natural subdivision of town property, during ten years. All these items must be accurately estimated and deducted, before it can be affirmed with certainty that in the rural districts there was during those years any increased division of landed property at all. And even if there was, increased division does not necessarily imply increased subdivision. Large estates may have been, and we believe were, in many instances, divided; but the division may have stopped there. We know of no reason for supposing that small properties were divided into others still smaller, or that the average size of the possessions of peasant families was at all diminished.

It so happens that facts exist, more specific and more expressly to the point than any of M. Rubichon's. A new cadastre, or survey and valuation of lands, has been in progress for some years

* Mounier and Rubichon, vol. i. p. 110.

past. In thirty-seven cantons, taken indiscriminately through France, the operation has been completed; in twenty-one, it is nearly complete. In the thirty-seven, the côtes foncières, which were 154,266 at the last cadastre (in 1809 and 1810) have only increased by 9,011, being less than 18 per cent. in considerably more than thirty years, while in many of the cantons they have considerably diminished. From this increase is to be subtracted all which is due to the progress of building during the period, as well as to the sale of public and communal lands. In the other twenty-one cantons, the number of côtes foncières is not yet published, but the number of parcelles, or separate bits of land, has diminished in the same period; and among these districts is included the greater part of the banlieue of Paris, one of the most minutely divided districts in France, in which the morcellement has actually diminished by no less than 16 per cent. The details may be found in M. Passy's little work, "Des Systèmes de Culture." So much for the terrible progress of subdivision.

We cannot leave this part of the subject without noticing one of the most signal instances which the reviewer has exhibited of his incompetency for the subject he treats of. He laments over the extraordinary number of sales of landed property which he says the law of inheritance constantly occasions; and indeed the sales of land are shown to have amounted in ten years to no less than one fourth part of the whole territorial property of France. Now, whatever else this extraordinary amount of sale and purchase may prove, the whole of it is one gigantic argument against the reviewer's case; for every sale of land which is caused by the law of inheritance must be a sale for the express purpose of preventing subdivision. If land, sold in consequence of an inheritance, is nevertheless subdivided, this cannot be an effect of the law of inheritance; it would only prove that land sells for a higher price when sold in small portions; that is, in other words, that the poor, and even, as the reviewer would have us believe, the very poor, are able to outbid the rich in the land market. This certainly does not prove that the very poor of France are so very poor as these writers try to make out, while it does prove that, if so, they must be by far the most industrious and economical people on the face of the earth, for which some credit ought surely to be given to the system of peasant properties.

II.

We have shown that the four millions of land-owners in France who can be reckoned among peasant-proprietors, those whose holdings fall short of twenty acres, are computed by one of the best living authorities to possess on the average eight and a half English acres each, and that from no authentic documents can the average be brought much below that amount; a fact wholly incompatible with their being in the state approaching to starvation in which M. Rubichon and his reviewer would represent them. It is equally certain that if there is bad agriculture on these small estates, it is from some other cause than their smallness. Farms of this size are consistent with agriculture equal to any on the face of the earth.

We shall now, however, touch upon another kind of morcellement, which does amount to a serious inconvenience, and wherever it exists must have a strong tendency to keep agriculture in a low state. This is, the subdivision, not of the land of the country among many proprietors, but of the land of each proprietor into many detached pieces, or parcelles, as they are technically desig nated. This inconvenience has been experienced in other countries beside France, as in the canton of Zurich, in the Palatinate, and (as respects holdings, though not properties) in Ireland. In France it is carried to so great an excess, that the number of parcelles is ten times the number of cétes foncières; and as there are supposed to be twice as many côtes foncières as proprietors, the curious fact is disclosed, that on the average of France the estate of every landowner consists of twenty fragments in twenty different places. The consequences are a subject of general and increasing complaint. Great loss of time and labor; waste of cultivable soil in boundaries and paths; the inaccessibility of many parcelles without trespassing on other properties; endless disputes and frequent litigationare enumerated among the evils; and it is evident what obstacles the small size and dispersed position of the parcelles, and their intermixture with those of other proprietors, must oppose to many kinds of agricultural improvement.

For a considerable portion of this evil, the French law of inherit ance may fairly be held responsible. A certain amount of it is inevitable wherever landed properties are undergoing a double process of division and recomposition; marriages, for example,

must in general bring together portions of land not adjacent. But if parents had the power of bequest, the owner of twenty parcelles, even if he adhered to the spirit of the law of equal division, would give some of the portions entire to one child, and others to another. The law, on the contrary, must divide with exact equality; and as it is generally impossible to adjust the value of patches of unequal fertility, vineyards, meadows, arable, &c., so as to satisfy everybody, it continually happens, especially in the more backward parts of France, that when the settlement is made by division instead of sale, each co-heir insists on taking a share of every parcelle, instead of the whole of some parcelles; from whence, no doubt, the amazing multiplication of these little patches in many parts of France.

This evil, while it would not exist to any very material extent except under the peculiar French law of inheritance, is not inevi table even under that law. The enormous extent of sales of land, amounting in ten years to a fourth part of the landed property of France, is a clear proof that in general the adjustment of inheritances is not effected by a subdivision of the land, but by sale; which, it needs scarcely be remarked, does not necessarily imply parting with the land, there being nothing to hinder the heirs themselves from becoming the purchasers. We have no doubt it would be found that this rational mode of executing the law is tending more and more to become universal. To hasten the undoing of the mischief which has been already done, the government has been often urged (in some instances by Councils-General of Departments) to propose a law authorizing the consolidation of landed properties. by a general valuation and exchange of allotments, in every commune in which the majority of the proprietors may apply for it; and unless the evil is seen to be correcting itself by a spontaneous process, nothing, we should think, can long prevent the adoption of so salutary an expedient.

That French agriculture, and the condition of the peasant popu lation, are injuriously affected by this sort of morcellement, is so far true, that it must considerably retard the improvement which might otherwise be expected, and which, in spite of all hindrances, does even now, to a great extent, take place. More than this we cannot admit. There are conclusive proofs of great and rapid improve.

ment in some parts of France, and M. Rubichon and his reviewer have no evidence whatever of retrogression in any.

They produce tables of the average amount of different kinds of food consumed by the population; also tables of the number of cattle, the amount of produce per hectare of the different kinds of cultivation, &c., calculated from the official documents. These estimates, assuming their correctness, (which, so far as that quality is attainable, we generally see no reason to discredit,) are indicative, doubtless, of a low and backward state. But statistics are only evidence of the present. Where are the statistics of the past? That the agriculture of a great part of France is rude and imperfect, is known to all Europe; but that it ever was better, is an assertion opposed to all evidence, and we shall not take M. Rubichon's word for it, no more than for the notion that the food and general condition of the mass of the people has been deteriorating from the time of Louis XIV.,* if not earlier. At this last proposition we cannot repress our wonder. In the reign of Louis XIV., Marshal Vauban, a great authority with all who are themselves authorities, and even with M. Rubichon, estimated that one tenth of the population of France were beggars, and five of the remain. ing nine tenths little above beggary. In the same reign, Labruyère claimed credit for apprising the salons of Paris that a strange nondescript sort of animals, who might be seen in the fields, and were much addicted to grubbing in the earth, were, though nobody

*It did deteriorate in the early part of the reign of Louis XIV. not because the peasants bought land, but because they were compelled to sell it. "Au moment," says Michelet (Le Peuple, ch. 1,)" où nos ministres Italiens, un Mazarin, un Emeri, doublaient les taxes, les nobles qui remplissaient la cour obtinrent aisément d'être exemptés, de sorte que le fardeau double tomba d'aplomb sur les épaules des faibles et des pauvres, qui furent bien obligés de vendre ou donner cette terre à peine acquise, et de redevenir des mercenaires, fermiers, métayers, journaliers.... Je prie et je supplie ceux qui nous font des lois ou les appliquent, de lire le détail de la funeste réaction de Mazarin et de Louis XIV. dans les pages pleines d'indignation et de douleur où l'a consignée un grand citoyen, Pesant de Boisguillebert, réimprimé recemment dans la Collection des Economistes. Puisse cette histoire les avertir dans un moment où diverses influences travaillent à l'envi pour arrêter l'œuvre capitale de la France, l'acquisition de la terre par le travailleur."