564 Hon. George G. BrodricJc [May 6, 



great difficulty in ascertaining the exact actual number of English 

 landowners ; but, after devoting much attention to the subject, with the 

 able assistance of Mr. John Bateman, I have arrived at an approxi- 

 mate result. I believe that, excluding the holders of less than one 

 acre, there are now about 150,000 landowners in England and Wales, 

 while about 2250 persons own together nearly half the enclosed land 

 in England and Wales. Considering that England and Wales now 

 contain a population of more than 20,000,000, and did not contain 

 above 2,000,000 in the reign of William the Conqueror, the proportion 

 of landowners to population is now less than one-tenth of what it 

 then was, and, what is still more striking, nearly half of all the land 

 belongs to a mere fraction — about IJ per cent. — of all the existing 

 landowners, even excluding those below one acre. 



It would be superfluous to point out the political danger involved 

 in this distribution of landed property, which contrasts most strongly 

 with that which exists in foreign countries. For instance, in France, 

 before the loss of Alsace and Lorraine, there were about 5,000,000 

 proprietors owning about 7^ acres each, on the average ; aljout 

 500,000 proprietors owning 75 acres each, on the average ; and about 

 50,000 proprietors owning 750 acres each, on the average. In 

 Wurtemberg, there are some 280,000 peasant owners, with less than 

 five acres each, and about 160,000 proprietors of estates above five 

 acres. No doubt, this extreme subdivision is, to a great extent, the 

 result of the Code Napoleon, under which at the death of a proprietor 

 all his land is divided equally among his children, except one child's 

 portion, which is left at his own disposal. On the other hand, the 

 extreme aggregation of land in England is no less the result, and the 

 foreseen result, of Primogeniture and settlement. It is not merely 

 that, under the law of Primogeniture, a great estate which may have 

 been formed out of many small estates goes to one child, instead of 

 being subdivided among several ; nor is it only that settlements 

 prevent family estates from being diminished, while they do not 

 prevent them being increased. It is also that Primogeniture and 

 family settlements have created a landed aristocracy under the cold 

 shadow of which a true yeomanry, like the old English, cannot 

 flourish. It is too much to say that the old yeomen have been 

 crushed out by powerful neighbours. Many have sold their patri- 

 monies because they were in debt, or because they found that by 

 getting a fancy price from some great nobleman or millionaire they 

 could improve their incomes and the expectations of their families. 

 But it is still more delusive to regard the disappearance of the old 

 English yeomanry as the result of natural causes beyond the control 

 of law. When it is said that land in this country has now become 

 the luxury of the rich, and that a poor man would be very foolish to 

 retain a few hundred acres when he could make a profit by selling 

 them, it is forgotten that in Northern France, Belgium, Holland, and 

 elsewhere, land fetches a higher price than in England, but that small 

 proprietors do 7iot die out ; on the contrary, that they are the highest 



