264 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



small or moderate capital is becoming every day 

 more and more effectually ousted from the possibility 

 of ownership in "the earth" which "was made 

 for all." * 



You point to France and Belgium, where an 

 opposite law compelling subdivision, with still 

 more rapid evil tendency exists ; and talk about 

 "political expediency," and the mischief of "mor- 

 cellement" But must you rush into one extreme to 

 avoid the other? or is your timid intelligence so 

 scared that it cannot pause to distinguish between a 

 tyranny which enforces subdivision, and the middle 

 course which would allow land, like every other 

 form of capital, to adapt itself to human need and 

 circumstance, and wholesomely to exist in great and 

 small proportions? Or is your political philosophy 

 of such a school as to leave you in the supposition 

 that you have the MORAL RIGHT to " capitalize " the 

 earth, and disfranchise seventy-nine eightieths of 

 the inhabitants of this country by "Acts of Parlia- 

 ment," and the "Custom of Conveyancers?" [for 

 it is authoritatively said (and there are no statistics 

 to disprove it!) that the owners of land in Britain do 



* It is a strange fact that the number of landholders in 

 Great Britain is not half so groat at the present moment as 

 a century ago. ED. 



