90 A TRACT OF MISCELLANIES. 



out of it. What is wanted is a state of society in 

 which there shall be a right adjustment of the popu- 

 lation between food and numbers. According to the 

 last census of Scotland, 48 per cent, of the adult 

 population between the ages of twenty and forty 

 were unmarried, and still in Scotland there are more 

 people than there is food for. Is it so, that in the 

 old communities of Europe not more than one third 

 of the adult population can marry with impunity, 

 and as the average duration of human life extends, 

 fewer marriages will be required ? 



Were the French Law of Inheritance somewhat 

 modified, it would go far to solve the problem 

 of a right adjustment between food and num- 

 bers. As the law stands at present, there is no 

 limit to the subdivision of landed property. What 

 is required is a limit, and that limit is palpably ob- 

 vious. When once a property under the present 

 process of subdivision is so reduced as shall just 

 afford to an average family an adequate supply of 

 cereal, vegetable and animal food, the State should 

 then interpose, and by a strict deed of entail the 

 further subdivision of the property should forthwith 

 cease ; and while the members of the family to 

 whom the property belongs should equally partici- 

 pate in the produce of it, they should be dispossessed 



