THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



357 



statistics, he discussed tliem, ot'tou rectified them, and 

 extracted from them iastruction for the future. It was 

 the first time that the inventory of our agricultural 

 wealth had been arranged with so much care and detail. 

 The public mind was arrested, and we recognized at the 

 same time in the author a deep acquaintance with every 

 department of practical agriculture, and a just appre- 

 ciation of the progress to be accomplished. 



Unfortunately, one defect is mixed with these admi- 

 rable qualities. That defect, which is excusable in a 

 young writer who for the first time enters upon so grand 

 a subject, is exaggeration. No number is too great for 

 Royer, no affirmation sufficiently dogmatic. All statis- 

 tical calculations appear to him erroneous, all adminis- 

 trative measures ill-conceived, all laws in need of 

 revision, all agricultural processes of alteration. There 

 is always much to say about human things, and those 

 who erect themselves into censors have only too often 

 reason on their side ; but everything must not be 

 blamed at once. In Royer's estimation, French agri- 

 culture is disorganized, and he thinks of nothing less 

 than organizing it anew— a great error, which has been 

 so much abused that it ought now to be obsolete, at 

 least for some time. That there were many views to 

 correct, many gaps to fill up in our agriculture, no one 

 can deny ; but that an industry, which, even ac- 

 cording to Royer's calculation, produces more than 

 1,000,000,000 fr. (or ^£40,000,000) per annum, can be 

 disorganized, it is impossible to admit. What, also, 

 does he mean by this organization, which, according to 

 him, should provide a remedy for all the evils which it 

 indicates ? Some measures of detail, of a utility some- 

 times questionable, and which in every case would 

 scarcely deserve so ambitious a qualification. 



That in which Royer was also deficient was close 

 economic study. We see that he has read the masters 

 of that science, but he has not sufficiently reflected upon 

 them. Everything about him bears the character of 

 feverish precipitation, and it might be said that he felt 

 time was about to fail him. For want of analytical 

 convictions on political economy, he hesitates, stammers, 

 contradicts himself, and what is the most certain mark 

 of slender knowledge, he expects at every turn to dis- 

 cover something that no one has seen before him. It is 

 not thus that the most scientific minds proceed ; with- 

 out attaching a blind faith to the labours of their pre- 

 decessors, they respect and study them, and enlighten 

 themselves at their lamp, in order to penetrate deeper 

 into the obscurities, and do not attempt to contradict 

 them until they are very certain of their facts. This 

 method — the only rational one, where it concerns the 

 sciences in themselves— -becomes still more necessary, if 

 it be possible, in relation to sciences applied. It is 

 there especially that it is easy to deceive ourselves, if 

 we have not recourse every moment to principles. So 

 likewise, as we cannot properly understand agricultural 

 chemistry, agricultural botany, or agricultural mechanics, 

 without being in the first instance a chemist, a botanist, 

 or a mechanic, neither can we properly understand 

 rural economy without first being an economist. 



In order to put agriculture in its proper place, that 



is, in the first rank of national employments, it is by no 

 means necessary to suppose, as did Royer, a constant 

 antagonism between the manufacturing and agricultural 

 interests. Both arc responsible ; only the interests of 

 agriculture are the greatest, turns over the largest 

 capitals, and provides for the most pressing wants. 

 Royer appears to think that this truth is unknown by 

 economists, when, on the contrary, it is the economists 

 who first combatted the errors of the mercantile system , 

 and who raised agricultural labour from the degradation 

 in which ancient prejudices kept it. If we read 

 all the books of the founders of the sciences in the 

 eighteenth century, we shall find that it is of agri- 

 culture they most exaggerate the importance. The first 

 agricultural society founded in France, that of Rennes, 

 which preceded ours by some years, has had for its 

 principal promoters, Gournay, the friend of Quesny, 

 and Turgot, the original author of the famous maxim 

 '' Laissezfaire, laissez passer." When Royer declaimed 

 against all special favour granted to manufactures and 

 commerce, to the detriment of agriculture, he only 

 quoted those economists from whom he professed to 

 separate himself. He borrowed from them without 

 suspecting it, even to that citation of Sully, which 

 forms the epigraph of his book, and which they have be- 

 fore him demonstrated: ^^ Everything flourishes in 

 a state where agriculttire prospers." 



Undoubtedly, he separated himself in some respects 

 i rom the econo mic theory , when he demanded in its turn for 

 agriculture what he calls a system of direct encourage - 

 ments ; but even there he approaches nearer to it than 

 he is aware. Political economy has no objection to the 

 establishment of consultative chambers of agriculture ; 

 on the contrary, it is one of its principles that all in- 

 terests should be freely represented and defeaded : and 

 if it had anything to object to, in the proposed institution, 

 it was that epithet of cojisnltativc, which appeared to it 

 too modest. The expositions, the meetings, the special 

 schools have nothing whatever to disgust it ; on the con- 

 trary, it would be easy to prove that these various means 

 of instruction and propagation have, like the agricultural 

 societies, sprung into existence under its auspices. Re- 

 lief from the public charges which press upon the soil 

 is one of the most habitual of its themes. See, however, 

 to what the practical part of the ideas of Royer is 

 reduced. We must do him the justice to state that he 

 has not much deceived himself as to the efficiency of the 

 duties called protective ; and if he sometimes appears 

 to demand them, it is only in words. What is there in 

 his programme to retrench, in order to render it quite in 

 conformity with the economic theory ? A tendency, 

 rather vague than clearly expressed, to a kind of direction 

 of agriculture by the State, which is as chimerical as it 

 is dangerous, and which he himself severely qualifies 

 whilst allowing himself to go into it. 



Nothing, therefore, justifies this pretension of a sepa- 

 rate political economy, distinct from the body of gene- 

 ral doctrine known under that name. With a modern 

 writer, M. de Villeneuve-Bargemont, Royer gives this 

 new school the title of Christian, as if all economic 

 doctrine was not Christian ! as if it was not the applica- 



