THE LAND SYSTEM OF FRANCE 411 



the modes of its cultivation, are in reality traceable to the natural 

 play of economic forces, aided, indeed, by the law of France, 

 but not the part of it supposed. 



The contrast between the land systems of France and England, 

 two neighbouring countries at the head of civilisation, may, with- 

 out exaggeration, be called the most extraordinary spectacle which 

 European society offers for study to political and social philoso- 

 phy. The latest official statistics in France, 1 on the other hand 

 (following an enumeration of 1851, now in arrear of the actual 

 numbers), reckon no less than 7,845,724 " proprietors," including 

 ners of house property in towns a number which may 

 assumed to denote the existence of eight million such pro- 

 ietors now. Of these, according to the computation of M. de 

 ivergne, about five millions are " rural proprietors," of whom 

 nearly four millions are actual cultivators of the soil. The official 

 tables themselves return no fewer than 3,799,759 landowners as 

 cultivators, of whom 57,639 are represented as cultivating by 

 leans of head-labourers or stewards, as against 3,740,793 cul- 

 ivating their land dc Icurs mains. This last figure is again 

 subdivided into 1,754,934 landowners cultivating only their own 

 md ; S3 2, 934 who, in addition to their own, farm land belong- 

 ig to others as tenants; and 1,134,190 who work also as 

 irers for hire. But these figures, as already remarked, are 

 in arrear; and we may accept as a close approximation to 

 actual situation the following estimate by M. de Lavergne : 



five millions of small rural proprietors, three millions possess on the 

 but a hectare a a-picce. Two millions possess on the average six hcc- 

 . . Two million independent rural proprietors, a mi II it >n tenant farmers 

 vers, and two million farmers and servants themselves, as well as the 

 illion farmers, for the most part proprietors of land; such is approximately 

 composition of our rural population.* 



>uld hardly diminish the contrast of such statistics t<> our 

 e we to adopt the figure which M. de I-avcrgnc has 

 luced into his " Rural 1 xonomy of G :ain," on the 



tiquc dc la France, Agriculture, 1868 (Rcsultat.i gcncrnux de I'enqucte 

 >Ie de 186. 

 * Not quite two acres and a half. n Economic ruralc de la Frai 



