PRIMITIVE PROPERTY AND MODERN SOCIALISM. 



433 



property of the commune or village. The sys- 

 tem of village communities was at one time sup- 

 posed to be a peculiarity of the Slavonic race. 

 M. de Laveleye shows that traces of the institu- 

 tion are discoverable everywhere, as indeed Sir 

 Henry S. Maine had done before him in his essay 

 on " Village Communities." A custom which 

 has existed in Peru and China, in Mexico and 

 India, in Scandinavia and among the Arabs, he 

 is fairly entitled to argue is a general phase of 

 social development. But it is in Russia and one 

 other country that the system has survived with 

 the least change. These comparatively perfect 

 instances have enabled M. de Laveleye to piece 

 together the fragments still remaining elsewhere, 

 and demonstrate that they are only instances 

 after all. In Russia, as is well known, the com- 

 mune or mir is proprietor of the peasants' land, 

 and, though every adult male is entitled to an 

 equal share, which he may cultivate for himself, 

 periodical redivisions are made. Only the house 

 and garden form private and hereditary prop- 

 erty, though even these may not be sold to a 

 stranger without the consent of the commune. 

 The commune is, in the eye of the state, the unit 

 of the Russian nation. But the commune is it- 

 self based on the family, and the family is a sort 

 of perpetual corporation. It is governed by a 

 chief called the " ancient." Though the com- 

 mune assigns to every adult a share of land, the 

 family holds all its allotments in common. There 

 is usually neither succession nor partition. On 

 the death of the father his authority generally 

 devolves on the eldest son, though the family 

 occasionally elect a chief. It is not, however, 

 M. de Laveleye tells us, blood which gives the 

 title to succeed to the family rights and posses- 

 sions, but cooperation in the labor which has 

 produced the property in question. Consequent- 

 ly, where a Russian family is afflicted with the 

 presence of an incorrigible idler, the father and 

 the head of the commune combine their powers, 

 and hand over to the conscription or to Siberia 

 the drone who violates the original compact by 

 eating what he has not earned. We have thus 

 in Russia, notwithstanding recent inroads on the 

 system, the village as the natural proprietor of 

 the soil, but using its privileges for the support 

 of the family. In our review of Mr. Wallace's 

 " Russia," in No. 298 of this journal, we com- 

 bated the absurd supposition that the Russian 

 mir is a type of " representative constitutional 

 government by democracy," and it is, therefore, 

 unnecessary to revert to that subject. 



Curiously enough, the country where M. de 

 100 



Laveleye discovers the system in a form as per- 

 fect as in Russia, if not indeed more so, is Java. 

 There it has been fostered by the Dutch, who 

 find it a convenient machinery for collecting the 

 enormous revenue the island contributes to Hol- 

 land. Both in Java and in Russia the community 

 of property in the soil determines the whole po- 

 litical and social organization of the population ; 

 but Switzerland, where the personal competition 

 for wealth is as active as in England or the 

 United States, possesses in its allmends as cleat- 

 traces of the original community of land as Rus- 

 sia or Java. In Switzerland, says M. de Lave- 

 leye, the communes enjoy almost absolute au- 

 tonomy. These Swiss communes are not merely 

 political and administrative institutions ; they are 

 also economical institutions. They defray the 

 cost of the school, the church, the police, and 

 the roads, and, in addition to all this, in many 

 cantons possess a large quantity of land, which 

 they distribute in usufruct among the inhabi- 

 tants. M. de Laveleye has collected a variety of 

 most interesting particulars on this subject. 

 Traces of the institution are found throughout 

 Switzerland ; but it flourishes most in the can- 

 tons of Uri, Schwytz, Glaris, the Appenzells, and 

 the two Unterwaldens. Originally the whole 

 canton formed a single commune. To this day 

 Uri constitutes a single mark without any divi- 

 sion into communes, and the man of Uri exer- 

 cises his right of enjoyment of the common prop- 

 erty wherever he may happen to reside. The 

 right is a very valuable one. The mountain-past- 

 ures are extensive enough to allow the keep of 

 two cows on an average for each family ; and 

 the worth of the communal forests is such that 

 if sold they would yield each family a capital 

 sum of fourteen hundred francs. The communal 

 cultivated land of Uri gives each family enough 

 garden-ground to raise vegetables and fruit, be- 

 sides flax or hemp for the household linen. All 

 these privileges, which we shall show hereafter 

 are in practice not so equally distributed as in 

 theory, depend on descent from the supposed 

 original occupants of the mark, and have become 

 the monopoly of a certain number of privileged 

 families. Thus the Swiss allmends are a kind of 

 link between the Russian and Javan village com- 

 mune and the ownership of the soil by family 

 communities. 



As M. de Laveleye expresses it, when common 

 ownership with periodical partition fell into dis- 

 use, the soil did not immediately become the pri- 

 vate property of individual owners, but was held 

 as the hereditary and inalienable patrimony of 



