THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



303 



and Eyder ; ia a great part of Westphalia, and other dis- 

 tricts of Germany ; in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway ; 

 and in the South of Europe, in Switzerland, the Tyrol, 

 Lombardy, and Tuscany, the peasants have from very 

 early times been the proprietors of a great portion of 

 the land. France and Prussia have, in our times, been 

 added to the countries in which the land is divided into 

 small estates of working-peasant-proprietors. In every 

 country of Europe, under whatever form of govern- 

 ment, however indirectly and remotely aifected by the 

 wars and convulsions of the French revolution ; and 

 however little the laws, institutions, and spirit of the 

 Government may as yet be in accordance with the social 

 state of the people, the tendency during this century has 

 been to the division and distribution of the land into 

 small estates of a working-peasant -proprietary, not to 

 its aggregation into large estates of a nobility and gen- 

 try. This has been the real revolution in Europe ; the 

 only exception to which is Great Britain. The tea- 

 dency with us during the present century has been 

 directly the reverse : it has been to aggregate even 

 small-tenant occupations into large farms. What haye 

 been the effects on the condition — on the moral and 

 physical well-being of the people of these two opposite 

 social systems : of the one of which Great Britain is the 

 type, and now almost the only example amongst the 

 European countries ; and of the other, of which the 

 most ancient type, and that which may most readily be 

 compared with the first, is perhaps this country of 

 Flanders ?" 



" In France and Prussia it has not yet had time to 

 develope itself, being a change but of yesterday. . . . 



" This mighty social change, so rapidly developed 

 and spread over the whole continent, is the most im- 

 portant result by far of the Fiench Revolution — the 

 most pregnant with future good or future evil, of any 

 produced by that great event. The rise and fall of dy- 

 nasties, constitutions, and forms of government sink 

 into insignificance, compared to this all-important 

 revolution in the social economy of the European 

 people — the new social state, as it may justly be called, 

 to which the form and spirit and administration of 

 government and law in Europe must be adajited, if 

 they are to rest on a permanent foundation. The re- 

 markable events of the year 1848 show that the coati- 

 neutal sovereigns have not seen, or have misunderstood, 

 the tendency, spirit, and strength of this new social 

 element, which they themselves in a great measure 

 created, and prove, even now, ia the beginning of its 

 development, that the old institutions and spirit of the 

 continental governments are not suitable for it, and 

 must be made conformable to it, either by violence or 

 timely adjustment. 



" By the French Revolution, in its direct and indirect 

 influence on the governing and the governed of every 

 European country, these new elements have been intro- 

 duced into the social economy of the continental peojde 

 —new, at least, in the extent of development and power 

 they have now attained. The first is this general dis- 

 tribution of the land into small estates of peasant- 

 proprietors. The second, as a necessary consequence of 



the first, is the extinction of the social importance of 

 the former great landholders — the aristocracy, nobles, 

 or gentry — as a third influential body, between the mo- 

 narch and the people ; and the substitution of a new 

 element— ynnctionar ism — instead of aristocracy, in the 

 social structure, as the support of monarchical govern- 

 ment. The third is the Landwehr institution, by 

 which, instead of a distinct class of the community 

 being kept up by the state as a standing army, the 

 whole community — all the male population, of age and 

 strength to carry arms — are embodied and trained three 

 years in the ranks of a regiment of the line, as common 

 soldiers, and constitute the main military force of the 

 country. 



' ' These eflfects are scarcely known to us ; and the 

 elements themselves ere quite as little known. These 

 elements were sown in war, and are adapted only to, 

 and preparatory for, war, and a military organization 

 and spirit of society. The spirit and principles of our 

 social institutions are more diS"erent now than they were 

 in the fourth and fourteenth centuries from those of the 

 continental people."'* 



Such is the anomalous condition of continental 

 Europe, as compared with that of England ; and the 

 motive has been fairly, but not fully, stated by the 

 writer. It has undoubtedly been intended to increase 

 the power of the crown, by breaking down an inde- 

 pendent, and therefore dangerous, sristocracy, and the 

 substitution of a body of functionaries immediately de- 

 pendent on, and paid by, the crown. And, on the 

 other hand, by the division of the estates of the nobles 

 into small peasant-proprietaries, it was designed to give 

 the masses an interest in the state, and thus attach 

 them to the crown and the institutions of the country. 

 " The immediate result in Prussia is, that there are 

 257,347 estates of from 50 to 240 acres, and 314,533 

 estates under 50 acres ; whilst there are 668,400 Prus- 

 sians, some of whom have each a small house of their 

 own, whilst the remainder are labourers for others, and 

 do not possess either house or land of their own, but 

 are allowed by their masters a field for the support of 

 one or two cows. It is possible for the poorest young 

 man in France, Germany, 9wit; erland, the Tyrol, Bel- 

 gium, Holland, Danmark, S\ved>.n, and Norway to pur- 

 chase a garden or a farm of his own, if he is intelligent, 

 prudent, and self-denying." 



The Landwehr adopted in Germany was instituted to 

 meet the conscription-law in France, by which eighty 

 thousand men were annually enrolled, and an equal 

 number, in time of peace, discharged. This system was 

 considered dangerous to the liberties of the neighbour- 

 ing countries, and it was judged necessary to have an 

 institution of a stringent military character to meet it; 

 and the Landivehr was adopted. The danger, how- 

 ever, to the severalgovernments, of thus making soldiers 

 of the whole male population, is a greater evil than 

 even that arising from a warlike neighbour. But the 

 injury to industry is a still greater evil. To take the 

 entire youth of a country for three years, at an age 



* Laiog's " Social and Political Coudition of the People of 

 Europe." 



