OTHER SCHEMES OF LAND REFORM 265 



of the Prussian statesmen at the beginning of last 

 century. 



Perhaps the best accounts in English of the land 

 legislation begun by Stein and Hardenberg are to be 

 found in the numerous parliamentary reports on land 

 tenure in other countries.^ 



The description of this German land legislation is a 

 complete model of the manner in which the land 

 question of England — of the same kind, but far less 

 complicated than it was in Germany — might have been 

 dealt with if there had been statesmen in this country 

 of the same fibre and foresight as those in Germany. 

 As soon as Stein took office he issued the celebrated 

 Edict of 1807, which was the basis of all subsequent 

 reforms. The edicts and laws which followed, extend- 

 ing over a period of fifty years, contained corrections 

 and improvements of that Edict, and provided mach- 

 inery for carrying it out. 



The avowed objects of the legislation initiated in 

 1807 were — to free the peasantry from their servile 

 tenure and to fix them on the soil, in order "to invigor- 

 ate the State " ; to provide a national agriculture ; to 

 abolish the powers of lords of the manor, giving them 

 fair compensation, and thus to convert peasant lands 

 into independent ownerships ; to commute the real 

 charges resting upon private rights which were at- 

 tached to various kinds of landed property ; to com- 

 mute rights of common and inclosed common lands, 



1 "Reports respecting Land Tenure," C. 426, 1871 ; C. 271, 1870; 

 C. 66, 1869; C. 572, 1872; C. 75, 1869-70. See also " Land System of 

 France," T. E. Cliffe Leslie; "Agrarian Legislation of Prussia," Sir 

 Robert Morier ; " English Land System," C. Wren Hoskins ; " Land 

 System of Belgium and Holland," M. Emile de Laveleye. 



