SMALL HOLDINGS IN 1888 ^ 397 



partly by unremunerative prices, partly by the unsolved problem of 

 securing to tenants the unexhausted value of their own improve- 

 ments, partly by the general want of confidence which pohtical 

 uncertainties had greatly encouraged. Large farms went begging 

 for occupiers. Agriculture with its new risks of pecuniary 

 loss, and its modern drudgery of close economy in manage- 

 ment, of minute attention to details, and constant personal 

 supervision, had ceased to attract men who possessed from 

 £5,000 to £10,000 in capital. In these circumstances it seemed 

 probable that, where landlords could command the money 

 for the initial outlay, they might with profit discard steam- 

 ploughs and make spades trumps. As an alternative to 

 allomng arable land to pass out of cultivation, and so in- 

 creasing agricultural unemployment, the multiphcation of small 

 holdings, on suitable soils, in suitable districts, and in suitable hands, 

 seemed to be a sound business proposition. Experience already 

 showed that small farms Avere easier to let than large. They com- 

 manded higher rents ; they were better adapted to reduced capital, 

 more suited to new conditions. Socially and pohticaUy, as well as 

 economically, the estabhshment of closer relations between land and 

 labour was advantageous. ""A peasant proprietary increases the 

 number of those who have something to lose and nothing to gain by 

 revolution, encourages habits of thrift and industry, gives the owner 

 of land, however small his plot, a stake in the country, and a vested 

 interest which guarantees his discharge of the duties of a citizen. 

 Combined with the parfage forcS, it checks population, for la plupart 

 des Normands n'ont pas lu Malthus, mais Us pratiquent instinctivement 

 ses conseils. ... It affords a training to the rural population for 

 which we in England have found no substitute. It checks the 

 centrahsation of pauperism, the overgrowth of population, and the 

 migration into towns. The element of stability which it contributes 

 to the State is more valuable to the French than ourselves. There 

 the towns are inflammable as touchwood, while the country ignites 

 more slowly. Yet even here it is useful to have a class of slow- 

 thinking men, who will answer pohtical firebrands with Cela est bien, 

 mais il faut cultiver notre jardin." ^ 



Moreover, the movement of replacing the peasantry on those parts 



^Pioneers and Progress of English Farming (1888), p. 138. For details as 

 to peasant proprietors and the departments in France where they thrive or 

 do not exist, see the writer's Pleasant Land of France (1908). 



