T8o4. On the Shorinefi of Lenfa. A^9 



foil in any country whatever. Of the baneful pra£lice of with- 

 holding leafes, or granting them of very ihort duration, which, 

 however, only prevails in certain dillrids of the country, he 

 •has perhaps chiefly to compUin. But this evil is fo great, that 

 it ftrikes at the root of all improvements, breaks the fpirit of 

 the people, keeps them in perpetual poverty and dependency, 

 and, as it were, * freezes the genial current of the foul. * 



Could reflridive injundions be impofed upon the people in a 

 free country, I know of no l\ibjed tliat fo much demands the in- 

 terference of the legiflature as this, of compelling the proprietors 

 ■of land to give leafes to their tenants, of certain duration at leaft. 

 The improvement and profpeaity of the country are concerned in 

 it. The increafe of the national produce, upon which national 

 profperity fo much depends, rells upon it. The affe<flionate re- 

 gard of the lower orders of the community towards the higher, 

 which the prefent times fo much require, hinges upon it. Never 

 will a tenant think of ameliorating his farm when he has no cer- 

 tainty of pofleilion, beyond the crop prefently among his hands. 

 Never will he lay out money, if he has it, upon improvements, 

 of which another may reap the fruit. Never will he devife 

 Ichemes of varied fuccefhons of crops, which, at the diftance 

 of feveral years, may repay him for the expenditure and induf- 

 try of the prefent, when he h uncertain of enjoying any of thefe 

 crops. Never will the face of the country be improved, when 

 the cultivators have no intereft in the improveme:;t, but perhaps 

 the reverfe ; and till a reformation is brought about in this le* 

 fped, we may lay our account that the fame poverty and mifery 

 will continue to prevail among the tenantry where the pradice 

 exifls^ as prevailed generally among the tenantry of Scotland, in 

 the end of the feventeenth, and in the beginning of the eigh- 

 teenth centuries, of which Fletcher of Saltoun, Law, and other 

 writers of that time, fo feelingly complain ; or which, we are 

 told, prevails among the lowelt defcription of tenants in Ireland 

 at this day \ and that we know prevailed among the whole body, 

 Btfarly, of the tarmers in France, before the revolution. 



As well may it be fuppofed that a country will be equally well 

 cultivated by flaves as by freemen, as to fuppofe that it will be 

 equally well cultivated by thofe who have no interell in the foil, 

 as by thofe who have, in the hrll iniiance, the labour is en- 

 forced by taikmaRers, and the fear of punifhment ; in the other, 

 it is perlormed from a fenfc of duty, and a feeling of interell. 

 In the one cafe, more bodily ftrength is exerted j and in tlie 

 other, prudence, fagacity, ingenuity, and the other nobler fa- 

 culties of the human mmd. In the former cafe, compulfion is 

 the only ftimulus ; in the latter, the moral fciuimcnt operates. 



Pd4 ^^e 



