The Lasting Effects of Feudalism. 3 



which have remained for generations in the hands of one 

 family. 



It would be hard to find in the new landed economy any 

 important element which did not originate either before or 

 during the feudal era. The lease, for example, one of the prin- 

 cipal features of the modern land system, was in use 345 years 

 before Christ,^ and was introduced into this country at a time 

 when feudal customs showed but little signs of a coming 

 decrepitude.^ 



We are then not only prepared to admit that our Anglo- 

 Saxon forefathers parted lingeriugly and reluctantly with 

 this mediaeval land system, but to show that there is an in- 

 stinctive tendency to resuscitate some of its ancient functions 

 when suitable occasions arise. Even amidst incongruous sur- 

 roundings, and on soils entirely free from the old traditions, the 

 Anglo-Norman blood betrays its presence and the defunct 

 practices of Feudalism recur. This is sometimes the case amidst 

 the English-speaking communities of the New World. Mr. 

 Froude, in his Oceana^ talks of Anglo-Saxon institutions sprout- 

 ing into vigorous life on all parts of the fertile Australian soil. 

 He has seen with his own eyes, in these southern colonies, all the 

 familiar machinery of a landed estate, with its country house, 

 tenantry, and farm homesteads. He has frequently shaken 

 hands and conversed with the representatives of a Victorian 

 landed gentry. He has tramped over Antipodean stubbles 

 dotted with red and yellow corn shocks, has gazed on blos- 

 soming potato crops, and peeped into well-filled rick-yards. 

 He has noted the change from farm lands to pasturage and 

 covert, as he approached the great gates of an Australian 

 landlord's demesne. He has passed sheep nibbling the grass, 

 and deer grouped under the wooded clumps of its park. 

 He has sauntered up the approach, glancing at the trim 

 hedges, clean-mown lawns, and bright-flowered gardens which 

 flanked its broad and well-kept drive, until he has alighted 



* Caird's English Agriculture, 1862 ; Note on Leases, p. 531. 



^ Thex'e are leases still in existence, principally in the counties of 

 Cheshire and Lancashire, which have centuries to run, and which were 

 one hundred years old in Stuart times. 



