FRANCE. 



THE RESULTS OF THE LAW ON UNDISTRAINABLE 



HOMESTEADS. 



OFFICIAL SOURCE : 



Report made on December 29th., 1913 by the Minister of Agriculture to the President of the 

 French Republic on the Results obtained up to the present by means of the I,aw of July 

 12th., 1909 for the Constitution of Undistrainable Homesteads. 



The law of July 12th., 1909 introduced into France an institution of ex- 

 treme social importance, authorizing the formation of what have long 

 been known in the United States as Homesteads, the results of which have 

 been found very satisfactory in all the countries in which trial has been made 

 of the system in recent years. 



This law, in fact, allows every small farmer to place beyond the poss- 

 ibiHty of expropriation and seizure a holding of a value not exceeding 8,000 

 francs, occupied and w^orked by his family and possibly consisting of a house 

 or separate portion of a house, or of a house and land adjacent to it or near it. 



So important a reform, conflicting in many ways with the ancient 

 French law on obligations, and appreciably modifying the mode in which 

 credit on land is granted and the security for it, and necessarily entaiHng 

 the completion of a certain number of formaUties on the part of those 

 desirous of benefiting by it, was naturally bound in its application to 

 encounter the difficulties usual in the case of laws involving important 

 changes in the economic social order. 



Thus the law on the formation of undistrainable homesteads is far 

 from having led, amongst the people for whose benefit it was passed, who are 

 still insufficiently enlightened in the matter, to the results that may justly be 

 expected from an institution which, however, so exactly corresponds with 

 the essentially individualistic tendencies of the small farmer and his affec- 

 tion for his land. 



The Minister of Agriculture, however, considered that a few years would 

 suffice to show the value and extent of the services rendered by this new law 

 and the causes, if any, that might impede its suitable application on a 

 large scale. He then proceeded to hold an enquiry, the results of which 

 were communicated to the President of the Republic on December 29th. 

 last. 



