POLITICAL ECONOMY. 



49 



>i Vet, according as the laws watched more or less strictly 

 n y- over the subject's liberty, cultivation upon this princi- 

 ple raised the husbandman to a condition more or less 

 comfortable. In Russia, he never escaped from servi- 

 tude of the soil ; in F.n^hnd, by an easy transition, he 

 arrived at the rank of farmer. 



The system of cultivation by metoyert, or cultiva- 

 tion at half-produce, is perhaps one ot the best inven- 

 tions of the middle ages. It contributes, more than 

 any thing else, to diffuse happiness among the lower 

 classes, to raise land to a high state of culture, and ac- 

 cumulate a great quantity of wealth upon it. It is the 

 most natural, the easiest, and most advantageous step 

 for exalting the slave to the condition of a freeman, for 

 opening his understanding, teaching him economy and 

 temperance, and placing in his hands a property which 

 he Avill not abuse. According to this system, the pea- 

 sant is supposed to have no capital, or scarcely any ; 

 but he receives the land sown and fully stocked ; he 

 takes the charge of continuing every operation, of 

 keeping his farm in the same state of culture, of de- 

 livering to his master the half of each crop ; and, 

 when the lease expires, of returning the land under seed, 

 the folds furnished, the vines propped, and every thing, 

 in short, in the same state of completeness as it was 

 when he received it. 



A metayer finds himself delivered from all those 

 cares which, in other countries, weigh heavily on the 

 lower class of the people. He pays no direct tax, his 

 master alone is charged with it ; he pays no money- 

 rent, and therefore he is not called to sell or to buy, 

 except for his own domestic purposes. The term, at 

 which the farmer has to pay his taxes or his rent, does 

 not press the metayer ; or constrain him to sell before 

 the season, at a low price, the crop which rewards his 

 industry. He needs but little capital, because he is 

 not a dealer in produce ; the fundamental advances 

 have been made once for all by his master ; and as to 

 the daily labour, he performs it himself with his family; 

 for cultivation upon this principle brings constantly 

 along with it a great division of the land, or what is 

 called cultivation on the small scale. 



Under this system, the peasant has an interest in the 

 property, as if it were his own ; without the anxieties 

 of wealth, he finds in his farm every enjoyment, with 

 which nature's liberality rewards the labour of man. 

 His industry, his economy, the development of his un- 

 derstanding, regularly increase his little stock. Ita 

 good years, he enjoys a kind of opulence; he is not 

 entirely excluded from the feast of nature which he 

 prepares ; his labour is directed according to the dic- 

 tates of his own prudence, and he plants that his child- 

 ren may gather the fruit. The high state of culture 

 to be found in the finest parts of Italy, above all of 

 Tuscany, where the lands are generally managed in this 

 way ; the accumulation of an immense capital upon the 

 soil; the invention of many judicious rotations, and in- 

 dustrious processes, which an intelligent, observing 

 ^pirit alone could have deduced from the operations of 

 nature; the collection of a numerous population, upon 

 a space very limited and naturally barren, shows plainly 

 enough that this mode of cultivation is as profitable to 

 the land itself as to the peasant, and that, if it imparts 

 most happiness to the lower class who live by the la- 

 bour of their hands, it also draws from the ground the 

 most abundant produce, and scatters it with most pro- 

 fusion among men. 



But whenever a country arrives at complete civiliza- 



TOL. XVII. PAKT I. 



tion, whenever the property and safety of individuals ? 

 are sufficiently protected, the usual population increases Bcoaom ' r - 

 beyond what husbandry can employ ; the extent of *~~<~* 

 land is limited, the population is not so. A great num- 

 ber of families are brought up on one farm, and sent 

 away by some accidental cause ; penury compels them 

 to offer their services, to some proprietor, for a recom- 

 pence smaller than what is given to such as are ac- 

 tually employed. Labourers outbid each other, and 

 at length go so far as to content themselves with 

 the moat niggardly subsistence, with a portion which is 

 barely sufficient in good years, and which in bad years 

 leaves them a prey to famine. This foolish species of 

 competition has reduced the peasantry, on the coast of 

 Genoa, in the republic of Lucca, in several provinces 

 of the kingdom of Naples, to content themselves with 

 a third of the crop, in place of a half. In a magnificent 

 country, which Nature has enriched with all her gifts; 

 which art has adorned with all its luxury ; which an- 

 nually gives forth a most abundant harvest the nu- 

 merous class that produce the fruits of the ground 

 never taste the corn which is reaped, or the wine 

 which is pressed, by their labour, and struggle conti- 

 nually with famine. The same misfortune would pro- 

 bably have happened to the people of Tuscany, if pub- 

 lic opinion had not guarded the farmer; but there no 

 proprietor dares to impose terms unusual in the coun- 

 try; and when he changes one metayer for another, 

 he changes no article of the primitive contract. So 

 soon, however, as public opinion becomes necessary 

 for the maintenance of public prosperity, it ought, in 

 strict propriety, to be sanctioned by law. Whenever 

 vacant lands are no longer to be found, proprietors of 

 the soil come to exercise a kind of monopoly against 

 the rest of the nation; and wherever monopoly exists, 

 the legislature ought to interpose, lest they who enjoy 

 may also abuse it. 



Cultivation by corvees was very far from being as hap- 

 py an invention. No doubt it gave to the peasantry a 

 kind of property, an interest in life ; but it reduced 

 them to sjee their domestic economy disturbed every 

 moment, by the vexatious demands of a landlord or Ins 

 stewards. The peasant could not perform the opera- 

 tions of his husbandry at the day fixed upon ; the 

 landlord's work must always be done before his own ; 

 the rainy days constantly fell to the share of the weaker 

 party. Under this system, the labourer performs every 

 service for his master with repugnance, without care 

 for its success, without affection, and without reward. 

 In the landlord's fields, he works as badly as he can 

 without incurring punishment. The steward, on the 

 other hand, declares it absolutely necessary that cor- 

 poral penalties be employed ; and the infliction of them 

 is abandoned to his own discretion. Servitude of the 

 soil has nominally been abolished in several countries, 

 which have adopted the system of cultivation by cor- 

 vees ; but so long as this general system of agriculture 

 is in force, there cannot be any liberty for the peasant. 

 And although the abolition of servitude has given 

 vassals a property and rights, which the landlord did 

 not formerly acknowledge, it has hardly at all bettered 

 their conditions. They are as constantly thwarted and 

 disturbed in their own operations as before ; they work 

 quite as ill during the landlord's days ; they are quite 

 as miserable within their huts ; and the master, who 

 had been flattered with hopes that the abolition of 

 slavery would increase his revenue, has derived no ad- 

 vanta^e from it. On the contrary, he is ever an ob- 



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