The Land from the Citizens Standpoint. 391 



now become a confirmed habit. Supposing that the Legisla- 

 ture merely refused to be bound any longer by the precedents 

 now regulating intestate succession, would not the landed 

 proprietor immediately become more alive to the importance 

 of making a settlement, and so few omissions occur, that no 

 susceptible alteration in the practice would take place? At 

 any rate, in such parts of England where, as for example in 

 Kent, this law is only partially in force, no great subdivision 

 of landed property has hitherto been noticeable, though there 

 is no gainsaying that this took place in other countries as 

 soon as their Governments discountenanced the rights of 

 primogeniture by repealing the legislation in their favour. 



The Radicals of the earlier portion of the present century 

 made the most of this evidence, and based their arguments in 

 favour of reform principally on the supposed benefits obtained 

 from the abolition of entails in foreign countries. France, they 

 argtied, before the Revolution, was reduced to a state of bank- 

 ruptcy, and was only able to furnish six hundred millions of 

 francs towards the formidable total annually required for the 

 State expenses ; whereas, after the Revolution, a milliard was 

 easily obtainable. Before it she had only 25,000,000 inhabit- 

 ants, after it 30,000,000.^ Before it several millions of hectares 

 of land were in a state of nature, after it their cultivation 

 doubled the produce and rental of the country, and fotmd 

 room for 3,000,000 proprietors.^ Before it misery and starva- 

 tion reigned throughout the rural districts, after it content- 

 ment and prosperity. All this was attributed by the re- 

 formers to the equalisation of landed property brought about 

 by the abolition of entails, primogeniture, and majorats. 



There is nothing the least extravagant in such a contention, 

 and all who are not bigoted politicians must admit that it 

 was possible for the moderate subdivision of the estates of a 

 grand seigneur amongst frugal, hardworking peasant-farmers 

 to have increased the profits derivable from French soil. But 

 what check was there in the Code Napoleon on the over- 

 division of landed property, and what mysterious virtues 



^ On Aristocracy, ch. xvi. M. H. Passy. Paris, 1826. 

 ^ Emancipation of the Soil and Free Trade in Land. Dr. Buchanan, 

 1845. 



