LANDLOKDS A NATURAL GEOWTH 145 



social development are tlius identical, it might be expected 

 that results should prove analogous. If England appears 

 to form an exception to rules of development which have 

 elsewhere prevailed, the exception is rather apparent than 

 real. The change which took place on the Continent 

 within living memory commenced in England four centu- 

 ries ago, and was practically completed before 1800. Its 

 causes and progress have been already traced in consider- 

 able detail.' On the Continent the land problem was 

 solved by the light of the French Revolution ; in England 

 it was determined while the spirit of feudalism still pre- 

 dominated. Yet in Germany in 1810 the interests of the 

 ' Halb-Bauern ' were as much overlooked as those of cot- 

 tagers in England during the sixteenth and eighteenth 

 centuries. What England lost in one direction by the 

 disappearance of a peasant proprietary she gained in 

 another by that early start in the race of commercial pro- 

 sperity which necessitated the extinction of small proprie- 

 tors. The higher class of artisans represents the yeoman 

 farmer, and its creation is the direct result of our land 

 system. Neither nations nor individuals can eat their 

 cake as well as keep it. Without large farms, capital, 

 and increased production, it would have been impossible 

 for England to feed her growing population, or to attain 

 her commercial prosperity. No such economic necessity 

 affected the agriculture of the Continent ; no industrial 

 changes as yet revolutionised the conditions of foreign 

 society. Buffon's maxim, ' A cote d'un pain il nait un 

 homme,' still held good on the Continent, when, in Eng- 

 land, population trode on the heels of production, and 

 when peasants were no longer born to the bread on which 

 they lived, but were suddenly required to furnish food for 



» See Chapters II., III., VII., and IX. 



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